Slippery Slope

The Jerusalem district court convicted former border police officers Assaf Kone, Mevorach Benyamin, Buziar Farhan and Dor Yakobi on charges of aggravated assault and abuse of a helpless person for their involvement in a 2009 incident in which they abused a Palestinian. The group arrested the man – a mentally disabled Palestinian – and took him into their jeep, where an unleashed dog awaited him. The group then proceeded to beat, curse and pour water on the man. Yakobi was convicted of aggravated assault, the remaining three were convicted of intimidation.

Four Border Guard officers were charged with abuse after they put a Palestinian, apparently suffering from mental illness, inside a jeep with a dog, threatening to let the dog attack him, and pouring water on him, all because he did not have his identity card with him. The incident occurred at the El-Jib checkpoint, near Givat Ze’ev, north of Jerusalem.

(Hebrew – Mako)

Two combatants from the Duvdevan unit will be tried for assaulting a wanted Palestinian during his arrest.

(Hebrew – Walla!)

A young Palestinian was shot and killed by IDF forces in the South Hebron Hills.  According to Palestinian sources, the youth was en route to work in Israel and was attempting to evade an army patrol. (Jerusalem Post)

(Hebrew – Ynet)

A Palestinian was injured by stones thrown at him by Settlers in Hebron.

(Hebrew – HaKol HaYehudi)

The Chief of Samaria Police District, Commander Itzik Rahamim, decided to award certificates of appreciation to the officers whose missteps led to the false arrest and 6 month detention of a 16 year old Palestinian Sheperd, even though DNA and eyewitness evidence pointed to his innocence.

(Hebrew – Haaretz)

Following a negligent investigation of a violent rape in the South Hebron Hills the wrong person, a 16 year old Palestinian, was arrested and held for five months.  Shai Police District arrested the youth even though an eyewitness denied his involvement, he did not match DNA from the crime scene, and no effort was made to track the victim’s stolen cell phone.  Only when the case came to trial did a military judge order the police to continue their investigation, which eventually led to the arrest of the suspected perpetrators and the release of the 16 year old shepherd. (Haaretz)

(Hebrew – Haaretz)

An IDF inquiry found that teenagers from Yitzhar tied up and hit a Palestinian man shot by one of the members of the settlement’s emergency squad. A senior officer with the Judea and Samaria Division said that the justification for shooting was a borderline case – the Palestinian carried a knife but was too far away from the settlers to present a clear and immediate threat.

Settlers pepper-sprayed a Palestinian construction worker working in the “Beit Tzvi” Yeshiva High School in Beit El.

(Hebrew)

For over six years Israel has been preventing Palestinian human rights activist Shawan Jabarin from travelling abroad, without providing any cause for the travel ban, and without arresting or prosecuting him.