Rights groups accuse the Israeli army of investigating only a fraction of cases of crimes against Palestinians.
An Israeli military court has sentenced three Israeli soldiers to short prison terms for assaulting a Palestinian man and obstructing an investigation into the incident, a rare punishment by the military against members of its own armed forces.
With hundreds of cases of Palestinian people killed by Israeli forces left uninvestigated or punished, human rights groups regularly accuse Israel of pursuing criminal charges for only a fraction of crimes allegedly committed by Israeli soldiers against Palestinians.
The Israeli army said in a statement on Wednesday that the soldiers were convicted of abuse and a third were additionally convicted of exceeding authority and endangering a man’s life or health.
According to the charges, the three soldiers, as well as a fourth, took the Palestinian man in a military four-wheel drive and drove to an unidentified “distant location”. During the ride and afterwards, “violence was used against the victim” and he was left in a remote location, the statement said.
The soldiers, whose identities were withheld, “then hid details of the incident from their commanders in an effort to prevent [military officials] of opening an investigation and coordinated their versions regarding the details of the incident,” the statement said.
Two of the soldiers were sentenced to 60 days in prison for abuse, while the third was sentenced to 40 days for exceeding his authority and endangering the Palestinian man’s life or health. All were demoted and given additional suspended sentences for obstructing legal proceedings, the statement said.
A fourth soldier, charged with assault, assault under aggravated circumstances, threats and other offenses, is still awaiting trial.
According to Israeli military data obtained by the human rights organization Yesh Din, in the five years between 2017 and 2021, the military received 1,260 cases of alleged crimes committed by Israeli soldiers against Palestinians, including 409 cases of murder of Palestinian people.
The Israeli military opened just 248 criminal investigations into cases of suspected misconduct in response to those complaints — 21.4 percent of the total, Yesh Din said. Of the number of cases investigated, only 11 cases had led to an indictment during that five-year period.
The Israeli military claimed that more charges were filed against soldiers than Yesh Din reported.