JERUSALEM, Nov. 29 (UPI) -- The Israeli demotion of two soldiers accused of ordering a Palestinian boy to open a bag thought to contain explosives is insulting, Human Rights Watch said.
An Israeli military court sentenced two soldiers Nov. 21 to three-months in jail and demoted them from staff sergeant to sergeant. They were accused of ordering a 9-year-old boy in Gaza at gunpoint to open a bag thought to contain explosives.
Human Rights Watch said the crime was tantamount to war crimes, saying the Israeli soldiers were using the boy as a human shield during a widely condemned raid on Gaza in 2008 and 2009.
South African jurist Richard Goldstone led a U.N. commission looking into the Gaza offensive dubbed Operation Cast Lead. The commission report concluded Hamas and the Israeli military both likely committed war crimes and possible crimes against humanity.
Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, said the sentencing of the two Israeli soldiers was nothing more than a "slap on the wrist."
"It is disturbing that soldiers who risked a child's life in a patently illegal way received a milder punishment than a soldier who stole a credit card," she said in a statement.
She added that the sentences were the only ones handed down by Israeli officials for "serious human rights violations" during the controversial siege.
