B'Tselem report exposes Israeli soldiers barbarous abuse of Palestinian civilians
B’Tselem's most recent report, titled “Unleashed: Abuse of Palestinians by Israeli Soldiers in the Center of Hebron,” reveals how, during the summer of 2024, Israeli soldiers randomly seized Palestinians in streets, checkpoints, or homes and subjected them to severe physical abuse.
Israeli security forces stand near an ambulance stretcher at the scene of a reported attack at an intersection close to the settlement of Ariel, near Nablus in the occupied West Bank. AFP
The report issued on Tuesday includes over 20 testimonies of Palestinians explaining how Israeli soldiers brutally abused them, some in plain sight and others after being taken to a military post.
According to B’Tselem's website, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories “strives for a future in which human rights, liberty and equality are guaranteed to all people, Palestinian and Jewish alike, living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.”
However, B’Tselem's executive director Yuli Novak said: "Israeli soldiers randomly seized people (Palestinians) going about their daily affairs and beat them, some to the point of unconsciousness, as though it were a routine matter."
"The testimonies gathered by our field researchers reveal shocking norms of violent conduct among Israeli soldiers. After more than a year of unrelenting war against the Palestinian people, abusing passersby has become not only legitimate but even welcome," she expressed.
Novak affirmed that this goes beyond isolated incidents or breaches of regulations. "We are seeing a pattern of systemic conduct that is the result of the dehumanization of Palestinians, led by the Israeli government,” she added.
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