Description

Army confiscates weapons of settlement response team. Police open investigation though no one was arrested at this time.

By Gili Cohen for Haaretz

An IDF investigation has uncovered that teens tied a Palestinian who had been shot and moderately wounded in the stomach and hit him, in an incident near the Yitzhar settlement in the West Bank. According to a senior officer, the rationale for shooting the Palestinian, who was armed with a knife but was far from the settlers, was borderline. In the wake of this incident and another shooting incident that occurred near Yitzhar last month, the IDF confiscated the weapons of members of Yitzhar's security response team. Shai District police have opened investigations into the incidents.

The inquiry of the IDF's Judea and Samaria Brigade into the incidents – the first of which occurred on May 19 and the second a week later on May 26, found that members of the security response team operated against orders and outside the realm of their activities.

The inquiry into the first incident found that the first incident that took place near Assira al-Kabaliya both sides, the settlers and the Palestinians, hurled stones one another, at a distance of some 50 meters from the village. A small IDF force arrived at the scene.

An officer that was at the scene approached the Palestinians trying to get them to leave, when a settler fired in the air behind him. At this point the officer turned back towards the settlers as he was approaching a Yitzhar settler fired a pistol at the Palestinians.

"The findings are that due to the way the shots were fired, they didn't pose an immediate threat to life, as can be seen from the fact that they shot in the air," a high ranking officer in the Division command said. "For this reason it is more appropriate that the police investigate the incident."

Colonel Yoav Yaron, commander of the Samaria Territorial Brigade, conducted the inquiry into the conduct of the settler response team, who claimed they fired over the Palestinians' heads. Regarding the claims that the officer on scene stood idly by as the settlers were shooting at the Palestinians, Colonel Yaron rejected the claim:

"[He] didn’t stand idly by, he ran and didn't stand about for a second, rushing into the scene right away. It is true that from the pictures it looks like he was standing around. If this in fact happened it was only for a second or two. He was in quite a hurry to take control of them and the behavior shows it. He walked towards the Palestinians, saw he was unable [to get them to settle down], and unfortunately wasn't able to prevent the injury that occurred."

The inquiry of the second incident found that a group of youths coming from Yitzhar tied his hands and beat a Palestinian that was shot by the settlement's response team. They weren't arrested – the army said that the unit on the scene was busy. According to a high ranking officer in the Judea and Samaria Division the torture of the injured man lasted seconds, and the military unit on scene arrived "quite immediately after the bullet was shot. They prevented what could have occurred."

The Inquiry of the second incident found that it also started with mutual incidents of arson. The inquiry states that some Palestinians from Urif made their way to the settlement while the settlement's response team was on its way to put out the fires accompanied by "youths that came to generate friction," according to the officer.

Shortly after, both sides started throwing stones at each other, when the group of teenagers started shouting that they see an armed Palestinian. The IDF officer on scene radioed this in.

The response team which was located at the limits of its jurisdiction, decided to move in. The Israeli teenagers, located 15 meters from the Palestinians laid low and directed the response team that was 50 meters away towards the place they claimed the armed Palestinian was located. They fired hitting the Palestinian in the abdomen, at which point they ran towards the injured Palestinian youth tied his hands together and began beating him.

Only once a company commander reached the scene did they stop. A soldier that accompanied the officer began treating the Palestinian, trying to stabilize his condition. According to the high ranking officer from the division "the incident was very grave in respect to the teenagers' behavior that both tied him and held him down at that point. He was lucky that the army arrived relatively quickly, and once he was taken away the incident quieted down relatively."

The Palestinian had a knife among his belongings. And the military inquiry found that he broke his cell phone after being injured. This is also being looked into by the military. When asked if the Palestinian's shooting was justified, the officer responded that the army had yet to conclude its investigation, but gave his estimate that it was "borderline."

"It isn't enough that someone shouts 'gunmen, gunmen,' a clear danger to life must be identified."