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Home » Soldiers »

Testimony - "The jeep was rocking"

 

Name: Anonymous
Rank: First Sergeant
Unit: Reserves
Location: Nablus, West Bank
Date: 2005

A former Israeli soldier provides a testimony to Breaking the Silence in which he describes how a group of Israeli policemen beat a Palestinian father and his son in the middle of a road junction.

Soldier: We went up to a post between the settlements of Shilo and Eli, on some hill, I don’t remember the name. We were briefed to replace the regulars, it was our first day out in the area. We arrived, we had a quarter of an hour briefing about the site and went up to replace them on duty. It was a pillbox post, located between two villages, on a junction in Road 60. We were briefed not to stop vehicles at the junction because there’s no intention to disturb them. We were only supposed to observe from above and make sure that no harm comes to settler cars as they pass. We got there, entered the post, and not even 10 minutes went by before we saw a police jeep coming.
 
Interviewer: Israeli police?
 
Soldier: Yes. They parked the jeep in the middle of the junction, I got up and saw this, went downstairs, and two minutes later we heard shouts: 'Help us, army! Soldiers, help us!’ All the conscripts went out with three reservists to help them. I went up to observe what was going on and there was this confused kid standing there, and I realized they had caused this tremendous traffic jam, stopping in the middle of the junction without bulletproof vests, without helmets, nothing.
 
Interviewer: The reservists?
 
Soldier: The police. They did just the opposite of what we’d been instructed, in every way. They created a traffic jam, and created a real disturbance. As they called us, they grabbed a father, mother and child, the parents around 50, the kid about 17, 18 and began to hit them, the father and the kid. They fought with them for a few minutes, in the meantime the soldiers arrived, flanked and secured them, and they were really fighting. One of the soldiers, I think, went over to join in. After a moment of hitting, they handcuffed the father on the asphalt. It was summer, very hot, I remember this. The kid was handcuffed as well, and the policeman took the kid with his hands tied behind his back and threw him into the jeep. The father was shackled on the side, and the mother was hanging on to the policeman. He pushed her away and the two went into the jeep, and the jeep was seen 'rocking’. You know, it’s no lightweight vehicle. The soldier threw the kid into the jeep head first and he had no way of holding on to anything and the jeep rocked. Finally they drove away, the father stayed lying on the asphalt, shackled, I don’t know who released him. The mother came to the post and began to throw stones. In a few seconds several others arrived but dispersed pretty quickly, it didn’t turn into a real riot.
 
Interviewer: Did you manage to talk to the policemen or the soldiers before that? Ask what had happened?
 
Soldier: No, no one understood what went on. They began hitting, I think they just detained people without any kind of intelligence information. They caused a traffic jam, they were there without a computer, empty headed, nothing, a pistol in their belt, and that’s all. I went on the radio, talked with my superiors – company commander, his deputy, battalion commander, his deputy, and even with the brigade commander – and told them I demanded an inquiry, I wanted to know why they did this. I tried to go through the official channels to know why, how they could act against all the rules that had been made clear to us an hour earlier. They acted in total disregard of any law. And that was that. No inquiry, nothing.
 
Interviewer: Did you try asking after that day?
 
Soldier: Yes. I was told it was being looked into, and that was that. I asked several times. Even after I left my reserves duty …
 
Interviewer: Except for you, how did other reservists see this?
 
Soldier: They were less upset. Also, they came to secure them, and throughout the incident they were on guard and missed most of the violence. The beatings. They came, surrounded them, and before they got organized I was above, looking down at the whole thing. I saw it all from above. I don’t think this was such an extraordinary incident, but to see with your own eyes how this unfolds in a matter of second …