Key takeaways from ex-IDF soldier wrongly accused of murdering 'Nukhba' attacker - analysis

There are a number of key takeaways from the complex case in which an ex-DF soldier named Saar Ophir was wrongly accused of murdering a Gazan "Nukhba" attacker on the field of battle on October 7.

However, the lessons are not necessarily what most might think.

For example, it still appears likely that some Israeli beat a neutralized and surrendered Palestinian to death.

We have not yet seen the video footage, but recently released court decisions make reference to the video showing these beatings, and the videos’ existence had been leaked already in many media reports last week.

Who was behind the video published?

There are still some mysteries behind this video: who took it? Why did it only surface to authorities nine months later?

But at least some theories, which the prosecution did not explicitly deny to the Jerusalem Post, said that the video was forwarded to Israel by foreigners or a foreign state.

This is important because if Israel had just summarily ignored the evidence without trying to investigate, it would have helped International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan make his case for trying to arrest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

In other words, Israel is at a very sensitive point where it needs to prove to the ICC and the world that it is not afraid to investigate its own citizens for potential war crimes allegations. That does not mean it needs to convict those who are innocent – obviously not. But at least to investigate is a minimum standard.

In any case, the point is it seems that a Gazan was improperly beaten, it just seems that it was not Saar Ophir, and likely not the other two Israelis who have been investigated for the crime to date.

So someone should probably still be arrested and tried for something – whether murder or negligent homicide often depends on the exact circumstances.

If someone did beat a Gazan to death who was neutralized and surrendered and who was unarmed and presented no threat – they would not be innocent anymore than Elor Azaria, the Hebron Shooter from 2015 was innocent. Azaria shot dead a confirmed terrorist who had stabbed his friend, but shot him a second time after the terrorist was already lying shot and completely disabled on the ground, presenting no threat, and was sent to jail.

After all of that, did the police and the prosecution mess up?

One thing to note is that Saar Ophir was the one who outed himself.

The police and prosecution had kept his identity under gag order for a variety of reasons, but one of which was to protect his privacy until and if an actual indictment was filed. 

But if in fact Ophir was not even in the location where the video and beating happened, then why did they arrest him in the first place?

It still is not clear how they connected him to the alleged beating and killing.

It seems that possibly he was incriminated by one of the other defendants, Roi Yifrach.

Yifrach is a suspect in this case, and is also separately indicted for impersonating a member of the Israeli defense establishment.

There have been implications that maybe Yifrach implicated Ophir to try to cut a deal for leniency for himself or to take a revenge on Ophir, who may be one of the sources who reported Yifrach as an impersonator.

Also, it seems that Ophir’s hands are not entirely clean.

He, Yifrach, and a third suspect, who still has not yet been named, may still be indicted for possession of an illegal weapon.

As Ophir has described it in media interviews, he went South to help Israelis who were being killed by Hamas.

When he arrived he found an M-4 gun on a dead IDF commando and used it to attack Hamas terrorists.

It is unclear why he did not return the gun after the battles.

He has said that he thought Yifrach had authorized him to keep the gun, but if he later reported Yifrach as a fraud, then that would have been another opportunity to turn the gun in.

Further, it would seem that his holding onto the gun may have been additional evidence convincing the police that he kept it to cover up other misdeeds, such as killing a Gazan in cold blood.

One other interesting twist is that the police are now saying that the Gazan who was killed was not a Nukhba terrorist, but a Gazan “civilian” who was unarmed and just entered Israel to steal property in a later round of invaders on October 7.

This argument does not really make the Gazan any less culpable on a battlefield where Israelis were being mass murdered.

The only legal question which really matters is was there a possible argument – for whoever beat him to death – that he still presented an imminent threat. If yes, then his killing was justified or potentially justified.

If not, then it was not, and the question is just what to indict the killer for. Unfortunately, at press time the prosecution still had not issued a detailed explanation that it was promising all day on Sunday.

It is hoped that when that statement is issued that it will clear up some of the mysteries and bizarre aspects of this case.