The Honenu legal aid organization has been leading the fight to defend IDF soldiers who face legal action for defending themselves in the line of duty, in addition to their representation of Judea and Samaria residents arrested for acts of self-defense, and nationalist activists who are wrongly accused by the courts.
Now Honenu has launched a new initiative to hand out to soldiers thousands of legal aid cards explaining their basic legal rights, and which include the telephone number for Honenu’s legal hotline that is open 24 hours a day.
In light of the escalation of attacks, Honenu is increasing the number of legal aid cards it is passing out; since Operation Protective Edge, Honenu has already distributed over 10,000 of the legal aid cards.
“Since we started distributing we have received different cases of soldiers and Border Patrol officers who were faced with legal problems, investigations and even indictments,” Honenu said in a statement. “Just last week we helped two soldiers who were arrested and released thank G-d after the involvement of attorneys from our organization.”
Highlighting the need for the organization is an incident Saturday night in which an Arab terrorist tried to stab police officers before being shot in Kafr Kanna in the Galilee – immediately leftist organizations called for an investigation against the officers.
Honenu notes in this context Charlie Shalosh hy”d of the police’s Yamam SWAT team, who was murdered 25 years ago while trying to neutralize an Arab terrorist armed with a knife who had murdered Jews in the Baka neighborhood of Jerusalem.
Shalosh operated according to the strict protocol of the police mandating a verbal warning, shooting in the air and then shooting at a leg of the terrorist, but by that point the terrorist had advanced far enough to stab and murder him.
“It needs to be understood that the soldiers are in situations with an immediate danger to their lives,” Honenu director Shmuel Meidad said. “We are here so that they won’t hesitate before harming terrorists and Arab rioters who come to attack them and all of us.”
Meidad added “our goal is that every soldier in similar situations comes out alive and also innocent.” Honenu released a video clip of Meidad giving a legal aid card to a soldier standing guard in Hevron, Judea.
