Law Enforcement on Israeli Civilians in the Occupied Territories

Hebron: December, 1993

Testimony by Amin Jamil Azhan Omar, aged 13, given to B'Tselem fieldworker Bassem ‘Eid on December 29, 1991

On January 22, 1991, at about 11:30 a.m., I was on my way home from school, on a Salim Street. I saw a car with two settlers inside. They stopped next to me. One of the passengers got out with an Uzi in his hand. When I saw him I started to run toward the nearest house, which was about 400 meters away. The settler ran after me and shot in the air. In front of the house, about 150 meters from us, I saw four soldiers who were on a foot patrol.

I didn’t want to get involved with the soldiers, so I entered an alleyway and hid there. The settler ran after me and threw a big stone at me that missed. He caught up to me and grabbed me by the hair. Then he grabbed my left hand and twisted it behind my back, first to one side and then to the other. My hand hurt a lot. It turned out that he had broken a bone in my hand. He threw me on the ground, grabbed me by the neck, and dragged me to where the four soldiers were.

The soldiers stood me up against the wall and the four of them started to kick me and beat me with their feet and helmets. One soldier brought a club and started hitting me on the head. The two settlers stood next to their car. One of the soldiers called with the radio on his back and a military jeep arrived with three soldiers. When the jeep came, the four soldiers left. One soldier got out of the jeep and tied my hands behind my back with plastic cord. He put me in the jeep and made me lie on the floor. Another soldier put his foot on my leg and another one stepped on my head. The jeep went to the Military Government building and the two settlers followed behind.

When we arrived at the Military Government building I was interrogated by a few police officers. They each asked me my name and my age. I was taken from room to room and the soldiers and the settlers went with me. Then they took me to the police station. A soldier came and took me into a room with a heater. He took a knife and cut the plastic that was tying my hands and injuring me. Then he turned me over to the settler who had broken my hand.

The settler took me into a room, picked up a club, and said, “I will break your stone throwing hand.” Right away an officer came and yelled at the settler. The officer took me to another room. I told the officer that my left hand was broken. The officer called an ambulance from the Aaliya Hospital in Hebron. The ambulance took me to the hospital. I arrived at the hospital at about 1 p.m. They operated on my hand and I spent one night in the hospital.

Amin’s mother was afraid to complain to the police, “so that the settlers would not take revenge on him.”

Al Azariyeh village, May, 1989

On May 24, 1989, many dozens of settlers from the town of Ma’aleh Adumim rioted in the nearby village of Al Azariyeh, just outside Jerusalem, after a car belonging to a family from Ma’aleh Adumim had been stoned, causing the driver to lose control; the car plunged into a ravine, injuring the occupants.

According to reporters from Ha’aretz, the settlers damaged villagers’ cars and houses along the main road.¹ The report quoted local Palestinians as saying that a small number of reserve soldiers also took part in the vandalism. After army reinforcements arrived, settlers moved deeper into the village, where they were met by a volley of stones. The army tried to separate the two sides and chased to the Palestinian stone-throwers, causing many of the local residents to take refuge in the mosque.

In violation of standing orders, the soldiers fired at least thirteen tear gas grenades into the mosque. Reporters who arrived while the incident was still in progress counted ten broken windows in the mosque and saw the spent tear gas canisters. During the clash, one of the settlers began firing into the air. When Brig. Gen. Gabi Ofir and the sector commander tried to wrest the man’s weapon from him, they were attacked by settlers.

According to Ha’aretz, the only investigation into these events was conducted by the police against the shooter and those who attacked the officers; the IDF did not investigate the soldiers’ involvement in assisting the settlers. Military sources confirmed that soldiers had continued in pursuit of the villagers as far as the mosque area, but say nothing about the use of tear gas. The sources added that only a specific complaint, including the name of the soldier involved, would be investigated.

Burqa village, February, 1988

On February 26, 1988, reporter Danny Kirtchik was an eyewitness to an incident in which soldiers and settlers entered the village of Burqa together. The settlers, he said, fired in the air, while the soldiers fired rubber bullets and tear gas grenades.

Testimony by Danny Kirtchik, as reported in Ha’aretz, March 1, 1988

I was in Jenin on Friday, after the prayers there were completed. I drove south, passed the bend in the road near the village of Burqa, and I saw cars standing by the roadside. There were four civilians and two civilian cars, a rented Fiat 127, license number 42 617 87, and a car with the number 99 690 83. Two of the civilians were armed with M 16 rifles and two with Uzi submachine guns. They had clips on the weapons and in their pockets. They fired at the village at an angle that could definitely hit people. They fired single shots and bursts.

On the road there were stones which had apparently been thrown earlier. I asked them what they were doing, and one of them told me: “Beat it before I shoot you.” I understood that he had spoken in a moment of passion, and I told him that I was not going to leave. They went on shooting for about another 30 seconds. About two minutes later an army jeep arrived, and then another jeep. Their numbers were [IDF] 657758 and [IDF]178641. I went over to the driver of the second jeep and asked him to intervene. He identified himself as Gur Elimelech, a reservist, from the settlement of Humash. He said he was responsible for this section of the road. Next to him was a man in a blue sweatsuit and slippers.

The officer asked me not to make problems. I asked him to file a complaint against [the shooters] in my name and he asked me not to make problems. He promised to take down the details. In the meantime he tried to calm me down. I spoke with the civilians, and they told me they lived in Humash. One of them was called Rudo. He told me that his wife had been a passenger in a car that was struck by a stone earlier, so he had decided to act.

As we were talking, we saw an Arab in the village, about 80 meters away, carrying a slingshot. Rudo ran to the jeep, rested his M 16 on it, and fired one aimed shot at the Arab. He missed. The officer yelled at him for shooting next to his ear. I now realized that I was dealing with a group of lunatics and that the military commander had no control over events. I left after a while and drove on the road next to villages in the area, where demonstrations were being held.

Afterwards, we turned back south, toward Burqa. We drove behind a Peugeot 504 van. Suddenly very large rocks were hurled at us from above. The van stopped abruptly, and two people got out. One of them was the same Rudo we had seen before.

He and his companion assaulted the village like infantry troops, firing their M 16s in short bursts between the trees. About five minutes later Elimelech’s jeep pulled up again. They summoned reinforcements by radio, and a patrol of soldiers in compulsory service arrived. All of them were sergeants, and no officer was among them. The Arabs on the hill began cursing them. In the meantime, two more settlers arrived. The soldiers and the settlers climbed up the hill to the village together. Rudo took a helmet from one of the jeeps. The settlers fired in the air, and the soldiers fired rubber bullets and tear gas grenades.

When they reached the village, they entered the alleyways, the settlers in the lead and about a dozen soldiers after them. It looked like a joint operation.

When they returned from the village, and the soldiers started arguing about whether they should have gone with the settlers or not, one of them complained that in past cases the settlers had also done whatever they pleased, and there was no way to restrain them.

The suspicion that IDF settler cooperation in violent actions against Palestinians exists at higher levels is supported by statements of settlers to the press and by their own publications. On May 18, 1989, Al Hamishmar reported that in private talks with settlers, army officers voiced their frustrations and told them, in effect, “Okay, react on your own, but don’t overdo it. We have to get approval for every reaction, and it’s complicated.” A day later Hadashot reported that “There are settlers who are ready to say that here and there they find a reservist or a border policeman who turns a blind eye to the settlers’ actions, as long as ‘they don’t overdo it’.”

On January 6, 1991, the secretariat of the Beit El settlement sent an open letter to the President of Israel, which stated, in part, that:

The interpretation you placed on our protest actions - that we do not recognize or respect the authority of the security forces - is far from being an accurate representation. If you were to meet with us for a frank talk so that we could try to understand one another, we would tell you about statements made by army commanders, who told us explicitly that what the “settlers” can do no one [else] can do, and to us that might be interpreted as an invitation to assist.