JERUSALEM — The Israeli military indicted a soldier Tuesday on a charge of manslaughter during last year’s war in the Gaza Strip — the most serious criminal charge to come out of an internal investigation into the devastating offensive in the Hamas-ruled territory.
The soldier was among three troops, including a field commander, to face new disciplinary action stemming from their conduct during the offensive.
About 1,400 Gazans, many of them civilians, were killed in three weeks of fierce urban fighting and aerial bombardments. Thirteen Israelis were killed.
A report commissioned by the U.N. Human Rights Council accused Israel of deliberately targeting civilians, a charge Israel rejects.
The military Tuesday said its chief prosecutor would indict an infantry sergeant for manslaughter in connection with an incident in which two Palestinian women — a mother and daughter — were killed while reportedly holding white flags.
In addition, the military said a battalion commander was disciplined for allowing his troops to use a Palestinian civilian as a human shield.
In a third incident, the military said it disciplined an officer who ordered an airstrike near a mosque, an attack that the U.N. report said killed at least 15 civilians and wounded 40.
The military prosecutor also ordered a new investigation into the deaths of two dozen members of a family who were ordered by troops into a building that was shelled later in the fighting. The Associated Press
