Closed stores in the Old City of Hebron in January.Credit : Hazem Bader/ AFP

The human rights organization B’Tselem released a new report on Tuesday on Israel Defense Forces soldiers routinely abusing Palestinian residents in the West Bank city of Hebron.

According to the report, which includes testimony from 25 people, the abuse follows a systematic pattern. Soldiers would grab a random person in the city, usually a young man, and search his cellphone for some pretext to detain him, like pictures from the Gaza Strip or an Arabic-language news site.

In most cases, victims were taken to a military outpost, where they were violently attacked. The abuse included being punched and kicked ; beaten with rifles, clubs or chairs ; being whipped with a belt ; having foul-smelling liquid poured on them ; and in one case, even being stabbed.

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Read full B’Tselem report here

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One such victim, Mahmoud ’Alaa Ghanem, 18, said that one day in July, he was on his way to his college when he was detained in the city by soldiers who were conducting random searches. One soldier ordered him to unlock his phone, which was password-protected.

« He went on Instagram and saw a fake picture of an Israeli soldier with three hands saving babies on October 7, which had ’Photoshop’ written on it. He asked me about it, and I said it was just a picture. »

Mahmoud ’Alaa Ghanem, 18.Credit : Screenshot taken from B’Tselem

He testified that the soldiers tied his thumbs behind his back with zip ties and put him on the floor of their jeep. Two of them spoke fluent Arabic. Then, « The jeep sped out of there, » he said.

"One of the soldiers grabbed me by the hair and slammed my face into the back door, three times in a row. I felt that my mouth and nose were bleeding. The soldier asked me, ’Do you like Hamas ?’ I said no, and then he grabbed me by the arm, twisted it around my neck and strangled me…

« Two soldiers started slapping me and asking me again : ’Do you like Hamas ?’ Again, I said I didn’t, and then one of them hit me hard in the testicles. I screamed in pain, and then he hit me harder in the same place. I begged him for the love of God to stop hitting me. »

In several cases, the report said, soldiers poured an unidentified foul-smelling liquid on the victims, and in two cases, they threw trash at them. That is what happened to Yasser Abu Markhiyeh, 52, a father of four from Hebron.

Like Ghanem, he was detained at a random checkpoint in the city and told to hand over his cellphone. He said the soldiers then took him to a military outpost in the Tel Rumeida neighborhood, where he was abused for around seven hours.

Yasser Abu Markhiyeh, 52.Credit : Screenshot taken from B’Tselem

« They banged my head against the gate, and took me up the stairs to the military post, » he said. « There, one of the soldiers stood on my legs, while the others beat me like wild animals and trod on my head. After several minutes of beating, while I lay on the ground, I felt soldiers moving around me. I think they were changing shifts. The soldiers who arrived trod on my stomach, my feet and my shins, and spat on me. Every soldier who walked by me kicked me and punched me. »

Eventually, an officer arrived. "He started questioning me about a complaint I’d filed against the extremist settler Baruch Marzel. He said Marzel’s name was put on a terrorist list due to the complaint. I denied it and told the soldier I hadn’t filed a complaint against him. He kept on asking me questions for about 15 minutes and then left. A few minutes later, some soldiers started attacking and cursing me again.

"At one point, they started pouring dirty water on my head and body. Whenever my clothes dried, the soldiers poured the liquid on me again. The report said that in at least three cases, the soldiers threw a ball at the victims’ head.

Qutaybah Abu Ramileh, 25, was arrested together with his brother Yazan, 22. At some point after his arrest, "the soldiers brought a bucket and put it on my head. Later, I understood they put a bucket on Yazan’s head, too.

« They started playing with a ball, or something like that, and threw it at the bucket on my head. It hurt every time the ball hit the bucket. I had a hard time breathing, and I felt like I was suffocating. »

Qutaybah Abu Ramileh, 25.Credit : Screenshot taken from B’Tselem

Prior to the ball incident, he and his brother were forced to kneel, after which the soldiers kicked them and hit them with their rifles. « Then, suddenly, I heard the sound of a leather belt above our heads, and one of them started whipping us with the belt on our heads and all over our bodies, » he said.

« We were barefoot, because they didn’t let us put on shoes before we left the house, and our slides fell off on the way. The soldiers stepped on our feet. »

Later, the soldiers poured an alcoholic beverage on him. « I heard a soldier talking to a girl on the phone. I think it was a video call. They were laughing and making fun of us. »

When they were first arrested, he said, one soldier asked him whether he was Palestinian. « I said yes, and then he swore at me and said, ’There is no Palestine, only Israel.’ He ordered us to curse Palestine and Hamas. »

The report said that in all but two cases, the victims were detained without being formally arrested. And the two who were arrested were ultimately freed without standing trial.

’Abd al-Majid Khatib, 19, similarly said the soldiers ordered him to unlock his phone and give it to them. « I saw him go into one of my WhatsApp groups and scroll through it. As soon as he finished, without saying a word, the other soldiers started violently leading me to the road while slapping and kicking me. »

One soldier « told me to call my mother a ’slut’ and to curse Hamas and Sinwar, » he continued, referring to the former Hamas leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar. « I obeyed because I was afraid of what they would do to me. »

Khatib said the soldiers abused him for about an hour, until a masked soldier who spoke Arabic entered the room. « He cursed me for following updates on what was happening in Gaza, and then untied my hands, took off my blindfold and told me to get lost. »

In many cases, the victims also described sexual abuse, being beaten on their penis and testicles and being forced to strip. Mahmoud Jaber, 20, was one of them.

« The five soldiers who were in the room got up and started beating me hard. When they were done, they made me take off all my clothes. One of the soldiers brought a metal detector and ran it over my body. When he got to the right knee, the device beeped because of the platinum [metal implants due to an accident], and he used it to hit me on the knee. » Then they told him to get dressed.

But a few minutes later, one soldier « forced me to undress again and do 150 push-ups. I told him I couldn’t, and then the soldiers beat and cursed me. I was completely naked, and it was a very humiliating experience. »

In other cases, the victims said soldiers used their guns or riot-control equipment to abuse them. ’Abir Id’es-Jaber, a 33-year-old woman, said a soldier threw a stun grenade between her legs while she was sitting in the car with her husband. The grenade exploded inside the car, and both needed medical treatment.

In three cases, soldiers extinguished cigarettes on the victims’ bodies. « One of the soldiers came up to me and put out his cigarette on my right leg, » said Muhammad a-Natsheh, 22. « He put it out slowly, so it would hurt more. One of them asked me : ’Does it hurt ?’ When I said yes, he punched me in the back of the head and stepped on my legs, pressing hard. »

Some of the victims were forced to sit for hours under the burning sun or in a room cooled to freezing temperatures by an air conditioner. Some were also denied food and drink for long periods of time.

Amir ’Aref Jaber, 20, said the soldiers « started beating me, punching me and kicking me all over my body. Then they made me sit on the floor, poured water on me and turned the AC on at a really low temperature. I was very cold. At some point, I was so cold that I yelled at the soldiers I couldn’t take it anymore. In response, they attacked me again and hit me, this time with clubs. »

Amir ’Aref Jaber, 20.Credit : Screenshot taken from B’Tselem

B’Tselem’s executive director, Yuli Novak, said the testimony « paints a picture of a horrific situation with regard to Israeli soldiers’ norms of violent behavior. These aren’t isolated incidents or violations of the rules. This is systematic behavior, and it’s a result of the dehumanization of the Palestinians spearheaded by the Israeli government. »

The IDF Spokesperson’s Unit said in response that « the IDF treats detainees according to international law, and works to investigate and deal with untoward events that violate orders. In cases where there is any suspicion of a criminal offense that justifies opening an investigation, a Military Police investigation is launched. Upon completion, the findings are transferred to the office of the Military Advocate General for review. » The IDF also said that « with the exception of the case of Yasser Abu Markhiyeh, which is under review by the Military Advocate General, the remaining incidents are unfamiliar to us and no identifying details were provided that would allow them to be identified and investigated. »

Nir Hasson

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