Israel: Three Soldiers Sentenced for Abusing Palestinian

Facts

• Three Israeli soldiers have been sentenced to prison time, after an Israeli military court found two of them guilty of abuse and another guilty of exceeding his authority when they endangered the life of a Palestinian man.¹
• The three convicted soldiers, plus a fourth whose trial is still pending, were indicted last month for taking a Palestinian man in a military jeep and driving him to an undisclosed "distant location," where they proceeded to beat and subsequently abandon him.²
• The indictment, which says the four unnamed soldiers of the Golani Infantry Brigade took the man during a routine patrol of the West Bank, also found them guilty of obstructing the military probe by hiding evidence and coordinating their versions of the incident.³
• The two soldiers convicted of abusing the Palestinian man were sentenced to 60 days in prison, while the third will serve 40 days because he didn’t directly participate in the violence. Proceedings against the fourth soldier are ongoing.⁴
• The soldiers agreed to plea deals to determine their sentences, and their prison time comes with a demotion in rank. Arrests of Israeli soldiers are rare, and the country has previously faced criticism for not properly investigating reports of possible misconduct.⁵
• Human rights group Yesh Din reports that data from the Israeli military shows it only investigated 248 (21.4%) of 1,260 alleged offenses against Palestinians, 409 of which resulted in death. The data spanning from 2017-2021 also shows that only 11 cases produced indictments.⁶

Sources: ¹Associated Press, ²FOX News, ³The Times of Israel, ⁴Jerusalem Post, ⁵ABC News, and ⁶Al Jazeera.

Narratives

• Pro-Palestine narrative, as provided by Amnesty International. As Israel continues its occupation of Palestine, its military abuses and murder of innocent Palestinian civilians continue with hardly any recourse. There are hundreds of reports of abuse by Israeli forces and dozens of unlawful killings. However, Israel refuses to even investigate the vast majority of these serious allegations. Israel cannot continue to murder and abuse innocent people with impunity; it must be held accountable.
• Pro-Israel narrative, as provided by IDF. The Israeli Defense Forces are strongly committed to minimizing harm to Palestinian civilians, as it fights terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip. It is not an easy situation, and there have been inevitable tragedies in the fight against terror. Casualties are horrific, but they're an unavoidable part of any serious military conflict. Israeli forces are taking all necessary precautions to keep innocent people safe.

Predictions