Haaretz
Adar2 26, 5765
Israel Defense Forces
troops beat five unarmed Palestinian traffic police in the West Bank city
of Hebron on Tuesday, a witness and officials said, throwing them to the
ground and hitting one with a rifle butt.
After the beating, which
lasted several minutes, the soldiers shackled the policemen and hauled
them away in an army jeep. The incident prompted dozens of Palestinians to
throw rocks and bottles at the soldiers.
An Associated Press
photographer who witnessed the incident said about 12 IDF soldiers
approached the policemen and ordered them to leave the area.
When
the policemen refused, the soldiers began to remove them by force, at
times beating them, dragging one policemen on the ground while kicking
him, and hitting another on the head with the butt of an M-16
rifle.
One Palestinian policemen was seen with a swollen red eye,
and another with blood dripping from his mouth.
An IDF official
present at the scene said on condition of anonymity that the Palestinian
policemen were not allowed to be in the area where the beating took place,
and that despite repeated demands for them to leave, they
refused.
Asked why the soldiers assaulted the policemen, the
military official said, "if they don't want to come with us nicely, then
we will take them not so nicely."
Dozens of Palestinian bystanders
threw rocks and bottles at the soldiers, who responded by firing tear gas
and stun grenades into the crowd. At least three protesters were treated
for tear gas inhalation by Palestinian medics.
Hebron's police
chief, Awni Samara, said the policemen were in the Palestinian-controlled
area of city and were not violating any agreements with Israel.
"We
are here to serve our people, and what the Israeli army did today is an
indication that they do not want peace or stability in the area," said
Samara.
In 1997, under the interim Oslo peace accords, Hebron was
split into two parts. One section remained under IDF control, while the
other part, where the incident took place, was handed over to Palestinian
control.
About 500 Jewish settlers, many of them extremists, live
in the Israeli-controlled part. Clashes between settlers and Palestinians
are frequent.
Since the latest round of Palestinian-Israeli
violence erupted more four years ago, IDF troops have moved in and out of
the Palestinian controlled areas at will.