“If I were the defense attorney for the young man from Hebron, I know who I would have summoned as my first witness claiming that the responsibility for the killing cannot be borne solely by an 18-year-old boy.” So read the Facebook posting by Michael Sfard, an attorney and international law expert who represents several Israeli human rights organizations, concerning the soldier accused of murdering an incapacitated Palestinian man on March 24. On video shot by a B’Tselem activist, the soldier is seen shooting the man in the head as he lay on the road after earlier trying to stab Israeli soldiers. The video sparked a public outcry.

The witness to whom Sfard is referring is any one of a long line of government ministers and Knesset members who have been relaying a clear message to the citizens of Israel since the start of the latest wave of terror last fall: Attackers bearing knives must be killed. Yesh Atid Chairman Yair Lapid, for example, told radio interviewer Nissim Mishal in October 2015 that Israel must confront terror attacks “with zero tolerance.” Lapid said, “You see someone with a knife, you see someone with a screwdriver, you should shoot to kill, don't think twice. There’s total backing [for this] from the legal and political system."

This view is not only held by right-wing and centrist politicians in Israel. In a sermon delivered two weeks ago, Israel’s chief Sephardic rabbi, Yitzhak Yosef, said, “Someone with a knife comes, it’s a mitzvah [commandment] to kill him. Don’t start being afraid … that someone will petition the Supreme Court, or some general will show up and say something else. … The minute a terrorist knows that if he comes with a knife he’s a dead man, this will deter them. That’s why it’s a mitzvah to kill him.”

Since the start of the intifada, B’Tselem activists and other witnesses have used cameras to document many instances of Israeli soldiers whose fingers were too quick on the trigger. The first recorded incident, aired on television stations around the world, showed the killing of a young Palestinian woman named Hadil Hashlamoun in September 2015. Hashlamoun had waved a knife at a soldier manning a checkpoint near the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, but did not pose an immediate threat to his welfare. The soldier did not even try to stop her. Instead, he pointed his rifle at her and fired a volley that killed her. The incident sparked outraged reactions in the Palestinian Authority-ruled territories. Young Palestinians who carried out terror attacks in Israel in the ensuing weeks noted on their Facebook pages that they had been deeply affected by the incident and sought to avenge the young woman’s death.