Israel reprimands troops who beat Palestinian man
Verbal rebuke, confinement to base and “conditional imprisonment” ordered for assault of civilian caught on film.
The Israeli army has reprimanded Israeli soldiers filmed beating a Palestinian man with a number of actions including verbal rebuke, “conditional imprisonment” and confinement to a base.
The measures taken by military officials on Sunday follow the release of footage of Friday’s incident, at Jelazoun refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, which showed troops assaulting the Palestinian civilian with their fists and a rifle butt.
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The beating was accompanied by shouted obscenities as the detainee lay helpless on the ground.
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The army said that brigade commander Colonel Asher Ben Lulu, who dealt with the soldiers, concluded “that while the arrest was justified, the means were inappropriate”, the AFP news agency reported.
Two of the soldiers were punished with 28 days of “conditional imprisonment”, while two others were confined to their base for 30 days, the army said in a statement.
It said that the company commander was reprimanded and that the conduct of the soldiers “was inconsistent with the expected conduct of IDF soldiers when operating in crowd control situations”, the military statement said.
The Israeli army said the soldiers were responding to a violent demonstration lasting “several hours” by as many as 70 Palestinians who were throwing stones at them, wounding the company commander.
The army said that during the demonstration the Palestinian who was beaten had “attempted to grasp a soldier’s weapon”.