Israeli soldiers
beat Palestinian journalists with batons and arrested them, on their
commanders’ orders, with the declared intention of disrupting their
coverage of a weekly demonstration in Kafr Qaddum in August 2012. This
was due to a policy change in handling what the army termed “serial”
demonstrations, according to the case file of a Military Police
investigation obtained recently by Haaretz.
During this assault, one soldier broke the hand of an Agence
France-Presse photographer, Jaafar Shtayyeh, as he tried to protect his
face from the soldier’s baton. At least one other photographer was
wounded in the arms and legs and several cameras were broken. While
Shtayyeh was curled up in pain on the sidewalk, a soldier kicked him.
All the journalists except Shtayyeh were handcuffed. All five were held under arrest for two hours in the West Bank
settlement of Kedumim. When they were released, they said, a soldier
videotaped them and told them, “You aren’t allowed to come to Qaddum
anymore.” To Shtayyeh, he said, “If I see you in Qaddum again, I’ll
arrest you.”Part of the assault was filmed by a volunteer photographer for the B’Tselem
organization, who was separated from the other journalists. The Foreign
Press Association demanded an investigation of the incident
Only in November 2016 did the military
prosecution inform Shtayyeh’s attorney, Eitay Mack, that two of the
soldiers involved had been put on disciplinary trial. Aner, the company
commander who broke Shtayyeh’s hand, faced disciplinary charges for
exceeding his authority to the point of endangering life and health.
Then-Lt. Col. Roman Gofman, the battalion commander, faced disciplinary
charges for violating the procedure for arresting photographers and
giving batons to soldiers who weren’t trained to use them. Both were
convicted and reprimanded.
The
Israel Defense Forces Spokesperson’s Unit informed Haaretz that the
military prosecution also terminated Aner’s service. But Gofman still
serves in the IDF and has been promoted to colonel and is the commander
of the 7th Battalion.
Mack, who filed a civil suit against the state on Shtayyeh’s behalf, only received the case file recently.
The file reveals contradictions between the statements of the brigade commander, battalion commander and police representative.
Prior
to the demonstration, all the security forces operating in the area set
up a joint intelligence task force. The Samaria Brigade commander at
the time, Col. Yoav Yarom, the brigade commander, told the Military
Police investigator that the task force was part of “the preparations
for a special situation, to provide a solution to a recurring problem in
the area.” He then listed the participating agencies and individuals,
including the Shin Bet security service, the police, the Border Police
and various army officers, including himself, and referred to
“anarchists” who are dealt with especially. He said he was responsible
for the task force.
We wanted the demonstration to have a low media
profile, because it promotes the delegitimization of the IDF and the
state,” Yarom said. But he denied ordering Gofman, the brigade
commander, to arrest journalists and said he didn’t know Gofman planned
to give his soldiers batons.
Gofman
described holding a planning meeting before the demonstration with the
police representative, Chief Superintendent Rafi, on the brigade
commander’s orders. He said Rafi ordered the arrest of journalists,
leftists, foreign and Israeli anarchists and stone-throwers.
During
this meeting, Gofman asked why leftists and journalists should be
arrested. He said Rafi responded that the intelligence task force had
decided to enforce an order declaring the area a closed military zone
against these groups, because “they heat up the demonstration.”
“I accepted his words as reality,” Gofman told the Military Police. “To me, he was the task force’s representative.”
The soldiers who beat and arrested the journalists said they did so on the battalion commander’s orders.
Chief
Superintendent Rafi told the Military Police that he said foreigners
should be stopped to see if they are journalists, but did not say
Palestinian journalists should be arrested. According to him, “A
decision was made by the operations department, as per orders from the
public security minister, to conduct operations in which left-wing
activists and foreign anarchists, who inflame tempers, would be
arrested.” This decision was made by the commander of the West Bank
Division, he added.
Yarom
said, “I don’t close an area to prevent coverage. Only if their
presence endangers the forces do I ask them to photograph and cover
somewhere else. The regular decision is that they’re allowed to
photograph, and the task force didn’t change this decision.After
being shown the B’Tselem footage, he said, “What I see is not
permissible use of batons. ... In retrospect, I can say that based on
what was filmed, the soldiers didn’t act according to regulations, but
within the framework their commander defined.”
Yarom
said that if Roman, the battalion commander, had asked him, he would
naturally have permitted him to equip his soldiers with batons. But he
added, “In any case, the very fact that batons were present” at the
demonstration “is problematic, because it ultimately leads to a decision
to use them.”
Aner,
the company commander, repeatedly told Military Police investigators
that Gofman, the battalion commander, had ordered him before the
demonstration to arrest reporters. Once he said this was “my commanders’
orders,” adding, “One lesson of previous demonstrations was an attempt
to prevent the involvement of journalists.” Asked if the journalists
interfered with the soldiers’ work, he answered, “No. They were merely
present in a closed military zone.”
The
journalists were walking together down a street in Kafr Qaddum, nowhere
near the weekly demonstration against the closure of the road to Nablus
due to the expansion of the settlement of Kedumim. Kafr Qaddum
residents and their supporters had begun demonstrating a year earlier,
and the weekly demonstrations continue to this day.Judging
by the B’Tselem footage, there were no clashes with the army at the
place and time the journalists were walking. The journalists wore flak
jackets with the world “Press” on them. Yet two armored military jeeps
that were driving down the road in the opposition direction from the
journalists stopped, and three soldiers, including the company
commander, got out and began attacking them with batons.
Omri,
one of the three soldiers, admitted under questioning that the
journalists didn’t throw stones, weren’t armed, didn’t run, didn’t
interfere with the soldiers and didn’t photograph classified IDF
operations. They simply “walked down the street toward the
demonstration.”
He
confirmed that journalists weren’t arrested during previous
demonstrations. This time, he said, the battalion commander’s orders
were to arrest anyone who violated the military closure order, including
journalists, and to beat with the batons anyone who resisted arrest.
Yossi,
the second soldier, initially said he ran toward a journalist who was
throwing stones “and told him to sit down.” Later, he said that the
journalist was only holding a stone, then changed it to, “I think I saw
him with a stone.”
On
August 30, 2012, a few days after the battalion commander was
questioned, Captain Amichai of the Military Police concluded that the
soldiers committed no crime and “their behavior was unexceptionable,
since they were ordered to arrest journalists and, if necessary, if they
resisted, to beat them with batons on the outer thighs.”
This
sounded strange to him at first, he wrote to his superiors, “since IDF
policy is not to beat/arrest journalists and/or left-wing activists who
come to demonstrations that are prima facie legitimate.”
“When
we got to the battalion commander, we discovered several interesting
things,” he continued. “First, the battalion commander, through a
situation assessment conducted by the brigade commander, was instructed
to meet with an Israel Police representative before the aforesaid
demonstration and coordinate expectations with him. Incidentally, the
battalion commander said, the latter told him there had been a change in
IDF policy on dealing with these serial demonstrations.”
The
battalion commander also said the police representative told him “to
instruct his soldiers to arrest any journalist/left-wing
activist/anarchist who is [unclear word] of the instructions and is in a
closed military zone.”
Aside
from saying that Aner’s military service had been terminated, the IDF
Spokesperson’s Unit added, “The batons were given to some soldiers in
order to reduce the use of potentially lethal materiel, while imposing
restrictions on their use. Nevertheless, ultimately, more force than
necessary was used while making the arrests, which violated the
procedure for arresting photographers.
“The
claim that the intelligence task force ordered the journalists’ arrest
wasn’t supported by the investigation,” it continued. “The IDF respects
freedom of the press in the West Bank. The claim that IDF soldiers try
to deter journalists from doing their jobs is baseless.”
MADA,
an independent Palestinian organization which promotes freedom of the
press, issues monthly reports on violations of this freedom by both
Israel and the Palestinian Authority. In its annual report, published in
early February, it listed 139 physical attacks by soldiers on
Palestinian journalists in the West Bank and Jerusalem. These attacks
included shooting sponge-tipped bullets, tear gas and stun grenades at
journalists and beating them with batons.
The
report also listed 38 incidents in which Israeli forces prevented
journalistic coverage, 31 cases in which they confiscated equipment, 16
cases in which they damaged equipment or vehicles, and 39 cases in which
they briefly arrested journalists. Altogether, it counted 376 incidents
in 2017 in which the Israeli authorities infringed on Palestinian
journalists’ freedom, including lengthy detentions,
banning them from
Jerusalem and various other tactics for disrupting their journalistic
work.
Case File
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