IDF says it punished 5 soldiers who photographed stripped, bound Palestinian detainee

The IDF says it has punished five soldiers for stripping a Palestinian detainee, strapping him to a bed, blindfolding him, tying his hands to a wooden rod behind his back and photographing him.

The army, in a statement, claims the Palestinian was trying to hurt himself and that was why the soldiers from the largely Orthodox Netzah Yehuda tied him up.

However, the IDF acknowledges that the manner in which the soldiers dealt with the situation went against the army’s “values.”

One of the soldiers posted the photo of the detainee from Gaza on Instagram, with the caption, “Good morning.”

Following an investigation into the incident, the army says that the commander involved was transferred to a different position, while his deputy was reprimanded.

Another soldier who tied the Palestinian down was sentenced to five days in military prison and removed from combat.

A fourth soldier who took the photo was sentenced to five days in military prison.

A fifth soldier involved was barred from leaving base for two weeks.

No disciplinary action was taken against two more soldiers involved in the incident but who were not from the Netzah Yehuda battalion.

“Both abusive treatment of detainees and the public sharing of humiliating or degrading images of them can constitute war crimes,” says Oneg Ben Dror from Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI)

The picture “confirms what thousands of testimonies from Palestinian detainees have exposed, and what we and other organizations have been reporting for nearly three years now,” she adds.