On Thursday a hearing was held in the case of the soldier arrested for the shooting of a wounded terrorist in Hevron.

The parents of the accused soldier met with their son in court, in an emotional scene which highlighted the difficulties the family has struggled with since the investigation into the shooting began last month.

After the hearing, which saw the soldier’s arrested extended by five days, the mother of the accused made a personal appeal to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, with a letter imploring him to work to have the charges of manslaughter dropped.

“I’m turning to you today because this is more than we can bear,” she wrote in a letter to the Prime Minister.

“I’m asking you, as the father of a soldier, if it’s right for a decorated soldier who neutralized a terrorist at the site of a terror attack because he feared he might be trying to set off a bomb after having stabbed some soldiers, and people all around are shouting ‘watch out, there’s a bomb, he’s going to set off the bomb, the terrorist is alive’ – to go to jail… for almost an entire month.”

“Our family is terribly worried that [our son] won’t get a fair trial, [that it] won’t be clean [from bias], that it won’t be free from outside influences. We’re worried that he’s going to be a scapegoat, due to the interference of very high level officials who from the first moment passed judgment, without waiting for the results of the investigation.”

The soldier’s mother continued, directly asking Netanyahu to intervene on her son’s behalf and ensure that charges of manslaughter are dropped.

“My son must not be convicted of manslaughter – I’m asking you to do everything you can to see that he is returned home to me.”