Something was very amiss with this whole situation, not least of which was IDF’s ROE, which at least must make sense.
I can’t speak about the IDF’s ROE as I am not knowledgeable enough about them, but I can say that in this specific case, this individual soldier made a fool of himself and brought shame on himself and his unit by his idiotic behaviour.
I saw a very similar occurrence back in the early 1980s when rioting of this nature (ie young boys and teenagers ineffectually throwing stones at lines of soldiers who are in the distance behind APCs and riot shields and firing CS gas, or baton rounds) was a daily event in my home town, with TV cameramen watching, hoping for the soldiers to over-react.
On this occasion I watched as the lightly equipped (like this soldier) army “snatch squad” ran out to arrest the ring-leaders. They ran out and then came back dragging a few lads along and giving them a good hiding as they did so. But shouts of anger arose from the bystanders when they saw that one of the arrested lads was about nine years old and was crying his eyes out. The arresting soldier seemed unaware of who he had until he noticed his mates shouting at him from the lines. When the soldier looked at his catch, like a good fisherman he knew it was too small, he gave the boy a good slap on the ear and let him run back.
The soldier returned empty-handed and with a shrug and a sheepish smile on his face to be greeted by good-natured jeers from his mates and actually a cheer of support from the bystanders. That was exactly the right course of action, the TV crews got a good picture of a soldier dealing humanely with a difficult situation, the boy returned to his mammy, who no doubt gave him another clip on the ear and I’m pretty sure he wasn’t too keen to get involved in rioting again.
Compare and contrast that with this stupidity from this soldier who just made himself look like a bully and a fool and gave great propaganda for the Palestinians to convince the world of the IDF’s “brutality”.