Police officers, IDF soldiers arrested for kidnapping Palestinian
Internal affairs department says nine suspects, eight of them security force members, allegedly abducted a West Bank man in August and assaulted him
Eight members of the Israeli security forces and one civilian were arrested for the alleged kidnapping and violent assault of a Palestinian in August, the Department for Internal Police Investigations (DIPI) said Tuesday.
According to details released by DIPI, the suspects — four police officers, four soldiers, and a civilian — attacked the Palestinian man in the area of Nahal Auja in the central West Bank, north of the Kochav Hashahar settlement.
An unnamed official familiar with the investigation told Channel 12 that the attackers claimed they suspected the victim was affiliated with Hamas; however, no evidence has been found to suggest this assessment was correct.
After assaulting the man, the suspects allegedly took him to a nearby location and abandoned him there. A short while later he was found and taken for medical treatment for his injuries.
“During the investigation, it became clear to us that this was a disproportionately violent incident that crossed a red line,” the official told Channel 12.
“Even if there was a basis for them to suspect terrorism, people in law enforcement have to operate lawfully — arrest and interrogate, and not use such violence. The moment they decided he was ‘suspicious,’ the violence burst out of them, and it’s hard to understand the justification for that.”
DIPI’s statement did not say how long the Palestinian civilian was held captive, where he was held, and where he was released.
The DIPI, which sits under the Justice Ministry, conducted a secret investigation together with military police and arrested the nine suspects Tuesday.
The four police officers and the civilian were to be brought to the Rishon Lezion Magistrate’s Court for a hearing on extending their detention, while the soldiers will be brought in front of a military court for the same proceedings.
According to reports, the civilian suspect is Saar Ofir, a resident of the Elkana settlement in the central West Bank who was previously arrested in July on suspicion of executing a Hamas terrorist captured by IDF troops in Gaza.
Hebrew media reports also said one of the police officers was suspended at the time of the incident but did not name him or any of the other officers or soldiers.
Israeli authorities rarely arrest Jewish perpetrators in attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank. Rights groups lament that convictions are even more unusual and that the vast majority of charges in such incidents are dropped.
Settler violence against Palestinians has spiked since the October 7 massacre carried out by the Hamas terror group in southern Israel, in which some 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage, but violence was already on the rise before then, according to watchdogs.
