The army's shooting of a Jewish Israeli peace protester has sparked a fierce debate about the conduct of the military in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Gil Naamati, 21, was seriously wounded in the legs when soldiers opened fire last Friday on demonstrators who were trying to cut through a gate in Israel's controversial separation barrier. An American woman tourist was also lightly wounded.

As the army launched an internal inquiry into the incident, leftwing politicians demanded to know why live fire had been used against unarmed protesters.

"An order to fire on people that do not fire on you is a completely illegal order," Ami Ayalon, former domestic intelligence chief and co- author of an unofficial peace initiative, told army radio yesterday.

Others rushed to defend the army, including Uzi Landau, a Likud minister without portfolio, who said the soldiers had been protecting the citizens of Israel by acting against "collaborators with terror".

The soldiers involved in the shooting incident, who were following orders of their company commanders, said they did not know that their targets were Israelis, according to the army. Mr Naamati, who recently completed military service, said there was no justification for opening fire.

David Grossman, the leftwing Israeli novelist, told the daily Yediot Aharonot: "For a number of years now, the fingers of IDF (Israel Defence Forces) troops have been light, too light, on the trigger when dealing with Palestinians.

"It was only a matter of time until it would begin to trickle inward and produce a similar pattern of action against Israeli demonstrators as well."

Ofer Shelah, in an editorial in the same mass-circulation newspaper, wrote that, pending the outcome of an inquiry, "it would not be premature to say that this entire incident is rife with signs of bestiality, which is the product of the ongoing occupation and the war in the territories on the IDF and on the Israeli mindset in general."

He said that had the victim been a Palestinian, the incident would probably not have merited a line in the newspaper.

Some commentators said that Israeli soldiers lacked adequate riot control equipment, despite the recommendations of a public inquiry into the deaths of 13 Arab Israelis in protests in 2000.

The daily Ha'aretz newspaper, which said that anyone who deliberately sabotaged the fence was a criminal, nevertheless said that the nature of the
protesters - in this case an Israeli anarchist group - did not justify the use of bullets.

"In past years, the IDF has become noticeably less fastidious about the use of aggressive means in the territories," the newspaper said.

"This fact is illustrated by the harm caused to civilians in airborne assassination strikes of terror targets and by permission given to soldiers to fire at night at people fleeing from a terror suspect's house that is encircled by IDF troops."

The incident followed a number of high-profile declarations by groups of senior reservists that they will refuse to serve in the territories.

They include air force pilots and members of an elite commando unit.

Some leftwing politicians have condemned the "refuseniks", saying they were setting a precedent for rightwing soldiers unwilling to dismantle unauthorised Jewish settlements in the territories that the government had pledged to remove.
For regional reports, www.ft.com/mideastafrica