Jerusalem (CNN) With international criticism of Israel's response to the Gaza protests growing, video emerged on Monday appearing to show an Israel Defence Forces (IDF) sniper shooting a Palestinian man standing near the border fence. In the preliminary findings, which were announced Tuesday, the Israel Defense Forces said that soldiers heard in a video of the incident cheering the man’s shooting acted inappropriately and will face a disciplinary hearing. One yells “What a legendary film!”

The video, which circulated on social media, appears to be through a scope, showing the Gaza border fence and a field behind it. The battle isn’t just between us and Hamas; it is also for ourselves, for our values and for the identity of Israel society.”

In the video, which was apparently filmed through a scope or binoculars, soldiers can be heard discussing the shot ahead of time, as the sniper trains his rifle on the suspect, who is seen standing next to another Palestinian crouching in front of a roll of barbed wire, several meters away from the security fence. In a response to the video issued Tuesday afternoon, the IDF said in a statement that the video was filmed back on December 22 during what they termed “a violent riot.”

At the time, protests were held in Gaza and the West Bank following US President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. During the riot, means were taken in order to disperse it, including verbal warnings and calls to halt, using riot dispersal means and firing warning shots into the air,” the IDF statement said. Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories Free Sign Up

The army said the Palestinian who was shot was one of the people “suspected of organizing and leading” the violence along the border, which included the throwing of rocks and Molotov cocktails. Another soldier is then heard saying, “Whoa, [he] hit him in the head.”

As a group of Palestinians can be seen carrying the injured man away, the photographer adds, “What a legendary video.”

Reporting on the video clip, which was the lead item on Israel’s national news broadcasts on Monday evening, TV correspondents said it was not clear whether the Palestinian suspect had been injured or killed. The video was not filmed from the position of the shooting, and was filmed by a soldier who was not part of the unit of the soldiers who fired.”

The IDF also said “relevant commanders” would conduct a full operation inquiry, which will then be submitted to the Military Advocate General’s Office, a legal department that supervises and the rule of law in the military. The military noted the cheering heard in the video “[does] not suit the degree of restraint expected of IDF soldiers and will be dealt by commanders accordingly.”

The one minute, 20 second video led the news Monday evening on Israeli television channels and featured highly in local newspapers, reigniting a debate about the Israeli army’s principles and its soldiers’ actions. Speaking of the soldiers heard on the video shouting “yes!” when the Palestinian is hit, Liberman says: “The truth must be clear. Look they’re running to evacuate him,” he later adds, “What a legendary video.”

Israel’s defense minister, Avigdor Liberman, said Tuesday during an appearance in northern Israel hours before the release of the preliminary results, “The sniper deserves a commendation, the photographer a court martial.”

Of the cheering soldiers, he added: “The truth must be clear. “The IDF is the most moral army in the world, but when you are on the front lines and tense sometimes you let out some tension, so you can understand this,” he added, calling IDF troops “the best of the Israeli people.”

Earlier Tuesday, Education Minister Naftali Bennett defended the soldiers in the video and pushed back at their critics. A video recorded by a soldier of the Israeli occupation forces who stood next to the sniper. Difficult to watch.”

PLO Secretary-General Saeb Erekat said: “This documented case of extrajudicial killing demands the world to end Israel’s impunity and highlights a further urgency for the International Criminal Court to open an immediate investigation into the war crimes committed by the Israeli occupying power.”

The video appears to contradict the IDF’s claim that it first fires warning shots into the air then aims at protesters’ legs. We aim for the lower part of the body, to the feet to make sure those rioters are not able to sabotage the fence or pose a significant threat to our facilities,” he told CNN last week. “We used tear gas and other means to create a distance between those rioters and our sensitive security infrastructure and if those things don’t work, if people don’t listen to our warnings and are hell bent on coming to the fence and sabotaging and trying to break through, we use very specific sharp shooters, snipers at specific persons who are trying to sabotage the fence. “The professed shock they now express, as well as their promise to investigate, are just lip service: as before, their ‘thorough investigation’ will once again whitewash the truth.”

Israel’s Minister of Education and leader of the right-wing Jewish Home party, Naftali Bennett, defended the soldier’s actions. “Anyone who was ever in the field knows that to sit in Tel Aviv or in studios and judge the expressions of IDF soldiers guarding the borders isn’t serious,” Bennett, who heads the right-wing Jewish Home party, told Army Radio Tuesday morning.
An Israeli Defence Forces investigation clears a sniper who fired a single bullet through the Gazan border fence, striking a Palestinian, but criticises a second soldier who filmed the incident and cheered. Defence Minister Avigdor Liberman says Israel has the world's most moral army and soldiers occasionally "let out some tension".