Israeli soldiers film home invasion and beating of Palestinian in West Bank
Israeli soldiers posted video clips on social media of them assaulting and insulting a young Palestinian man after arresting him from his bed and dragging him away at gunpoint.
The clips, filmed on cameras attached to the soldiers' uniforms, also show the blindfolded and handcuffed detainee on his knees with some of the soldiers standing around him.
The soldiers are all wearing balaclavas and one of them is holding an Israeli flag.
Omar Abdullah, from the occupied West Bank town of Sinjil, north of Ramallah, recognised his son Salah, 20, through these videos, and confirmed that he was severely beaten during his arrest.
On 1 December, the Israeli army stormed the family’s house after removing its main door. Omar told Middle East Eye he was about to open the door to go to prayers when he was surprised by the soldiers flooding in.
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They went straight to the room Salah and his younger siblings were sleeping in, grabbing him by the neck, beating him and dragging him out of the room at gunpoint, according to the video footage.
The children woke up to the sound of their brother screaming and began crying and begging the soldiers to stay away from him, but the beating continued and Salah started bleeding.
“They prevented me from entering the room, but I could hear the sound of every blow,” his father told MEE. “They were holding him by the neck and wanted to strangle him and hit his head against the wall.”
'These videos are no less horrific than the beating Salah was subjected to. They want to oppress us and hurt us'
- Omar, victim's father
The soldiers dragged Salah from the room, their rifles pointed at the 20-year-old, and took him from the house to their military vehicles, beating and insulting him as they went.
The Israeli forces did not say why they were targeting Salah. “They told me: ‘We want to discipline him.’ I told them he did nothing, but they beat him more and took him away,” Omar said.
The family don’t know anything about their detained son, except that he was - or is - in Ofer Prison, west of Ramallah. They said they were surprised the soldiers had published clips of the arrest on social media.
“These videos are no less horrific than the beating that Salah was subjected to. They want to oppress us and hurt us by publishing these humiliating pictures,” his father concluded.
After circulating the video clips, Omar appealed to all human rights institutions to save his son from what he described as certain death if he continued to be treated in this way.
Sharp increase in detentions
The Palestinian Authority’s Commission of Detainees Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club civil society group said on 31 October that Israel had issued nearly 9,500 administrative detention orders since 7 October last year.
“The huge increase in the number of administrative detainees is mainly linked to the arrest campaigns in the occupied West Bank, including Jerusalem, with more than 11,500 arrests in all groups,” the two groups said in a joint statement.
Amani Sarahneh, spokeswoman for the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club, told MEE that although these leaked photos and clips appear to be posted by an individual, they are organised.
Sarahneh said that the abuse of detainees has increased to the point that they are no longer able to predict what an Israeli soldier might do.
Severe beatings in front of the family, vandalism, obscene language, strip searches, and the use of police dogs all indicate a policy similar to the “price tag” attacks carried out by Israeli settlers.
“What is happening against Palestinian detainees is another aspect of the genocide that is happening against the people of the Gaza Strip,” Sarahneh said.
Filming and insulting detainees causes long-term psychological damage, especially in children, and the goal of leaking the videos is clear: to destroy the human dignity of the Palestinians, according to Sarahneh.
“There are many clips that haven’t been circulated, including clips of soldiers carrying out field executions against detainees, and also a clip of police dogs attacking a detainee and biting his hand,” she said.
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