9 soldiers in hazing incident demoted, jailed for 58 days

Nine soldiers from the Kfir Brigade were sentenced to 58 days in military prison on Monday as part of a plea bargain, after a hazing incident left a younger brigade member hospitalized with a ruptured spleen.

The prosecution wanted to have the soldiers all demoted to the rank of corporal, but the court accepted the soldiers’ request that they be demoted even further — to the rank of private, the lowest military rank. IDF privates do not wear any stripes on their uniforms indicating rank. As corporals, the soldiers said, they would be wearing and showing the shame of their demotion.

The conviction stemmed from an incident at the beginning of August in the Nahshon Battalion of the Kfir Brigade. Corporal Sa’ar Mizrahi was “tried and convicted” by more senior members of the battalion for touching a so-called “seniority stick” — a stick reserved for soldiers with greater seniority. Mizrahi was “sentenced” to a beating by his fellow soldiers, and the following morning he collapsed and was rushed to HaEmek Hospital in Afula with a ruptured spleen and bruises all over his body.

Days after Mizrahi was hospitalized, Kfir Brigade commander Col. Udi Ben Moha ordered the Nahshon Battalion disbanded.

In court on Monday, Shai Rodah, an attorney representing one of the defendants, emphasized that none of the soldiers involved in the incident intended to seriously harm Mizrahi. “They are his friends,” Rodah told the court. “They have expressed their regret over the incident and asked [Mizrahi] for his forgiveness.”

The soldiers told the judge, Col. Orly Markham, that hazing incidents of this sort are common in every combat brigade and battalion.

The judge rejected that excuse, ruling that “physical violence against soldiers of lower seniority or rank is absolutely unacceptable and reprehensible.”