Video footage shows police threatening youth during Migron evacuation
‘You’re dead!’ yelled one of the cops charged with removing the teens from a settlement rooftop
By all reports, the evacuation of the West Bank outpost of Migron on Sunday went smoothly and peacefully.
However, video footage now available on YouTube shows that the police on hand threatened a group of protesting teenagers with physical violence and even death.
The video shows the youth climbing up onto the roof before the arrival of riot police. Residents who wished to bring water to the protesters on the rooftop were politely, but firmly turned back by the police.
Just after the 12-minute mark of the video, the police begin putting a ladder up against the house to bring the protesters down from the roof. The camera recorded at least one of the policemen saying “Bring them down. Kill them… Go up there and kill them.”
When the boys tried to push the away the ladder before the policemen start climbing, one of the men below yelled “Get over here! You’re dead!”
When one of the boys came down the ladder, two policemen tried to pull him down faster. The boy said to them “I’m coming down,” while the police continued to pull him. One of the policemen started hitting the youth to force him to let go of his grip on the ladder. The boy was then wrestled to the ground before being led to a waiting police vehicle.
At the 13:34 mark of the video, a policeman says to one of the boys on the bus, “You’re lucky that you’re being filmed.”
Police refused to answer any questions posed by the videographer, who expressed sympathies with the evacuated settlers in the video.
The illegal outpost of Migron was evacuated earlier this week after a court accepted the state’s position that it was built on private Palestinian land. Settlers left the land peacefully, but some outside youths resisted the evacuation.
Army Radio reported on Thursday that teams from the Defense Ministry have been going through the buildings in Migron and determining which ones can be moved to the Sha’ar Binyamin industrial zone. Buildings that cannot be moved are to be demolished. Avi Roeh, the head of the Binyamin Regional Council, asked that the synagogue be spared at least until the legal status of the land can be further investigated.
Roeh submitted a request to Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Minister of Interior Eli Yishai not to demolish the synagogue. No response from either ministry was reported.
