“Unleashed”: Report Details How Israeli Soldiers Brutalize West Bank Palestinians in Hebron

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

As Israeli raids continue across the occupied West Bank, we turn to a new report from the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem that details the gruesome abuse of Palestinians by Israeli soldiers in Hebron. B’Tselem documented the testimonies of over 20 Palestinians between May and August. They describe being punched, kicked, sexually abused, beaten with rifles, clubs or chairs, being whipped with a belt, having foul-smelling liquid poured on them, in one case, even being stabbed by Israeli soldiers.

One of the Palestinian teens B’Tselem spoke to is Mahmoud Ghanem, an 18-year-old engineering student attacked by five Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint in July. A warning to our audience: These testimonies are graphic.

MAHMOUD GHANEM: [translated] They dragged us to the jeep and made us kneel. I was still tied up. Then he blindfold me, grabbed me by the hair and banged my head against the jeep door three times, each harder than before. He hit me violently on my chest and stepped hard on my legs. Then he started punching me in the stomach. One of them grabbed me by the neck and pulled me up until I couldn’t breathe. The other punched me hard in the stomach. Then, while I was trying to catch my breath, he stepped on my testicles.

AMY GOODMAN: And this is the testimony of 52-year-old Yasser Abu Markhiyeh, who lives across from the Gilbert checkpoint in Hebron and is the director of the Ibrahim al-Khalil association in Tel Rumeidah, which is involved in cultural and educational projects in the occupied West Bank. He was questioned, detained and beaten by Israeli soldiers in July.

YASSER ABU MARKHIYEH: [translated] They treated me barbarically and arrested me for no reason. I was in pain and suffered beating, humiliation and mental torture. I was very confused and scared. … When I got to the Gilbert checkpoint by my house, an Israeli soldier demanded my ID card, and I handed it over. He demanded the phone, too, and I handed it over. Then he said, “You’re making a lot of trouble. You gave an interview on Al Jazeera.” And I said, “That’s right. I did.” He tied my hands and ordered me to sit on the ground. The four soldiers from the military post arrived. They blindfolded me, and before they took me away, they hit me on the head and kicked me.

AMY GOODMAN: Those are some of the disturbing testimonies included in B’Tselem’s new report titled “Unleashed: Abuse of Palestinians by Israeli Soldiers in the Center of Hebron.”

Since launching its war on Gaza last October, Israel has intensified attacks across the occupied West Bank, carrying out near-daily raids that have led to the arrest of some 12,000 Palestinians.

For more, we go to Tel Aviv, where we’re joined by Sarit Michaeli, the international outreach director for the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem.

Sarit, welcome back to Democracy Now! We are seeing images of thousands fleeing Syrian prisons, and hearing the stories of hell inside. You, at the same time, have come out with this report on what’s happening to Palestinian prisoners in Hebron. Describe what shocked you most in what you are learning.

SARIT MICHAELI: I mean, thank you very much, Amy and Juan. It’s good to be with you.

And I think the most fundamental issue is that Israel claims to be a different society to Syria, right? Israel claims to be a democracy. We would argue that this is not the case. But in terms of the standards we have to set, these are just absolutely different standards to what we would expect.

In terms of what we discovered in this report, I think, on some levels, in a sense, the obvious. We’ve seen the increase, the massive increase, in the violence that Israel has inflicted on Palestinians since Hamas’s criminal actions, criminal attack on October 7th, in the slaughter in Gaza, and also in the dehumanization discourse inside Israel. And therefore, on many levels, it’s not surprising that Israeli soldiers who listen to Israeli leaders will act in a way that reflects this dehumanization.

But there is also something extremely shocking about this, because the violence that we documented, it was new, not because there hasn’t been violence by soldiers against Palestinians in the West Bank and in the city of Hebron before, but the scope of it, the scale of it, the fact that it was done in broad daylight, the fact that it was almost random in terms of the choice of victim. It wasn’t people being beaten up for something they allegedly did, like throwing stones or being rude. It was Palestinians being beaten up and facing severe abuse merely for being Palestinians. In some way, it’s as if the soldiers were just revenging Hamas’s attack and kind of imposing this vengeance on all Palestinians. They were selected almost at random, and this was done broadly. It’s very clear that everyone was aware that this was being done.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Sarit, very few, according to your report, of the people who were initially detained were even charged with any offense?

SARIT MICHAELI: I think this is exactly the point. It’s not as if Palestinians [sic] arrested someone, had an actual, realistic allegation against them, whether that’s true or not, and then proceeded to beat them up. Soldiers approached Palestinians who were going about their daily business. In some cases, they looked for some sort of so-called, quote-unquote, “excuse” to beat them up, right? So, if they had some sort of photo in their phone that the soldiers could interpret as being problematic from their perspective. Or in other cases, just the mere fact of walking down the street while Palestinian was enough to trigger this abuse. That’s why we talk about this as being quite arbitrary. The victims were selected just by — you know, for just going about their daily business.

Additionally, I think one of the other really relatively new things or the new developments about what we see on the ground is that there were many threats of sexual violence. This is something I think we should be aware of, we should be mindful of, over the past year, you know, sexual — types of sexual violence and threats, in our context.

Additionally, I think several of the witnesses reported that the soldiers were documenting these incidents, presumably to broadcast them then on social media or, in one case, to send to a fiancée, to friends. So, none of this is being done in a secretive way. It’s all being done in broad daylight.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And also, is Hebron unique in this situation, or is it emblematic of what is going on across the West Bank?

SARIT MICHAELI: So, Hebron is unique in the sense that it is the only Palestinian town or city in the West Bank where there is a constant military presence right in the city center because of the Israeli settlements that are based in the center of Hebron. So, because of that, there is always a constant contact. There’s an interface between Israeli soldiers and Palestinians in their daily lives. So, in that sense, Hebron is unique.

But we surmise, we think, and we’ve reached the conclusion that this level of violence would reflect not just the conduct of soldiers, of Israeli soldiers, and other members of the Israeli forces in Hebron city center, but that they are a much broader phenomenon. And as an Israeli organization that includes both Israelis and Palestinians, we look also at Israeli society and at what this indicates about the current moment in our society. And I think this is a really important point, the fact that these soldiers know what the spirit of the commander is. They’re not doing something of their own private initiative. They’re performing abuse that has been called for, has been incited for by Israeli leaders, by politicians, by Israeli media extensively over the past year.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Sarit Michaeli, so, you have close to 800 Palestinians dead on the West Bank since October 7th, killed by Israeli soldiers. You have — and settlers. You have 12,000 imprisoned. What are you calling for? What is B’Tselem calling for?

SARIT MICHAELI: Well, we have discussed in detail what we call the silent war that Israel is conducting in the West Bank. On some levels, it’s not totally silent. But this is what one of our witnesses really referred to it.

I think one of the main issues that B’Tselem has been addressing over this past year is the connection between our war against the entire Palestinian people primarily, what we, what my government essentially has been doing in Gaza, the mass killing of civilians, the utter destruction of Gaza, the devastating humanitarian disaster that our government has caused, together — the connection between this and violence and abuse by soldiers and the use of lethal force, very extreme and disproportionate use of lethal force in the West Bank.

These are all connected issues, and they can only be addressed with some level of accountability, not just for the crimes being perpetrated in the Gaza Strip, but also for these crimes, for these abuses. We know accountability isn’t going to come from within. The Israeli system is unwilling and unable to hold Israeli soldiers and Israeli forces accountable. On the contrary, what they are doing is the result of official incitement. And therefore, there has to be international accountability for this. And as we have always stated, the international community has to also act to hold Israeli policymakers accountable for these violations.

AMY GOODMAN: Sarit Michaeli, we want to thank you for being with us, with the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem. The new report, we’ll link to, “Unleashed: Abuse of Palestinians by Israeli Soldiers in the Center of Hebron.”

Next up, Luigi Mangione has been arrested and charged with the murder of UnitedHealth executive Brian Thompson. As many offer condolences to Thompson’s loved ones, we’ll look at how his killing has sparked outrage over the state of healthcare in the United States. Back in 20 seconds.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: “Deny, Defend, Depose,” a song by the folk musician Joe DeVito, the song he shared a few days ago in response to the news of the killing of the UnitedHealthcare CEO. DeVito said, “I wanted to throw my two cents in and try and try and convey that rage, and why people are so angry.” While people express horror over the murder of the executive, people are also expressing outrage.