JERUSALEM (AFP) — The Israeli military has launched an investigation into the shooting of a blindfolded and handcuffed Palestinian with a rubber-coated bullet which was caught on film, the army said on Monday.
AFP earlier quoted an army spokesman as saying the soldier who fired the shot had been detained. The army denied saying this, but would neither confirm nor deny he had been detained.
The army also declined to provide any details about the inquiry.
The website of Israel's mass-selling Yediot Aharonot newspaper reported that the soldier had been arrested and said he told military investigators he had been ordered to shoot by his commanding officer.
Footage of the incident, released on Sunday by the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem, shows a Palestinian demonstrator handcuffed and blindfolded, with an army officer holding his arm.
A soldier next to him appears to take aim at his leg, a shot is fired and the camera darts briefly away before showing the man lying on the ground.
The protester, identified as Ashraf Abu Rahma, 27, was lightly wounded in the incident which took place on July 7 in Nilin, an occupied West Bank village where regular protests are staged against Israel's separation barrier.
The army, which said five border guards, three soldiers and two labourers working on the wall were injured during protests in June, announced the inquiry after the video was shown on Palestinian television.
But Israeli army spokeswoman Avital Leibovich told AFP the film raised several questions and had "missing sequences." She added that the man went home with a wounded toe and without filing a complaint.
The demonstrations in Nilin frequently turn violent, with protestors hurling stones and Israeli troops firing tear gas and rubber bullets.
Israel says the barrier is needed to stop potential attackers from infiltrating Israel and Jewish settlements in the West Bank, but Palestinians say it is a land grab aimed at undermining the viability of a promised state.
In 2004, the International Court of Justice issued a non-binding resolution calling for parts of the barrier inside the West Bank to be torn down and for a halt to construction there. Israel has ignored the ruling.
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