The Israeli military said Monday it was investigating a video that appears to show an Israeli army sniper shooting a motionless Palestinian across the border in the Gaza Strip, to the sound of excited cheers from an onlooker.
Israeli television channels broadcast the clip during prime-time evening news bulletins after the footage circulated widely on social networks. One news anchor described the video as "disturbing."
The release of the video comes amid more than a week of daily protests by Palestinians along the border, in which at least 30 Gazans have been killed, according to Palestinian medical authorities.
However, the Israeli military said the video was "not recent" and was likely filmed months ago.
The amateur video shows a person in the distance, beyond a wire fence, standing still and alone, before a gun fires and the person falls to the ground.
"Wow, what a video. Yes! Son of a bitch! What a video. Here, they're running to evacuate him," a voice says in Hebrew as people are seen running toward the person.
On Tuesday, the IDF issued a statement indicating that the video was filmed at the Israel-Gaza border in December 2017 and the soldier involved had been questioned. The IDF added that an investigation has been launched to determine whether IDF protocols were violated.
Education Minister Naftali Bennett was one of the first politicians to respond to the video, telling Army Radio on Tuesday, "I fully support IDF soldiers."
Bennett said that "anyone who has ever been in the battlefield knows that to sit around in Tel Aviv or in a television studio and judge people on the basis of IDF soldiers' remarks, or to decide whether it sounds nice or not, that's not serious. Are we judging soldiers on the quality of their conversations?"
On his Facebook page, Bennett wrote that "IDF soldiers defend our lives and we defend them. We don't abandon soldiers."
Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan also addressed the controversial video, saying, "I support our soldiers who are confronting Hamas terrorists day and night and risk their lives on our southern border. I suggest that all the people who are shocked [by the video] focus their energy on pressuring the West to attack the mass murderer [Syrian President Bashar] Assad. That is where we need public discourse, not here."
Yair Lapid, head of the Yesh Atid party, said he had "full confidence in the IDF chief of staff and in the IDF commanders who will investigate the video and the sniper without hesitation, in accordance with the values of the IDF and its orders. Israel's moral fortitude is part of our national security and it is what gives us our qualitative advantage over our enemies."
Joint Arab List leader Ayman Odeh said the video "terrifies the soul, rejoicing over the taking of a life and what appears to be the execution of someone who endangered no one." He called for the shooter to be put on trial.
The IDF has stationed sharpshooters to enforce a no-go zone near the border fence and stop Palestinian attempts to breach the border during the current string of protests dubbed "The March of Return."
Protest camps have sprung up a few hundred meters inside the Gaza side of the fence. But large groups of youths have ventured considerably nearer, burning tires and hurling stones at the Israeli side.
Israel says it has been warning Gazans for weeks not to approach the border fence, and accuses Hamas, the armed Islamist group that controls Gaza, of instigating the protests.
Maps of Gaza from recent years by United Nations humanitarian agencies indicate a "no-go zone" of up to 100 meters from the barrier, with limited access for farmers in some areas from 100 to 300 meters.
