Summer of Hell for Palestinians in Hebron, B'Tselem Report Says
Israeli humanitarian group documented "recurring instances of severe abuse of Palestinians by Israeli soldiers in the center of Hebron throughout the summer of 2024."
B’Tselem issued a new report on Tuesday that documented testimony from 25 Palestinians who said Israeli soldiers badly abused them in central Hebron between May and August 2024.
Hebron is a Palestinian city in the southern West Bank, where the IDF has been cracking down since the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack. At least 780 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since the attack and nearly 12,000 have been detained.
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“The testimonies describe acts of violence, humiliation, and abuse directed by soldiers at men, women, teenagers and children,” the group said. “Victims gave harrowing accounts of physical and psychological abuse, including beatings, whipping, having cigarettes put out on their bodies, blows to their genitals, injection of an unidentified substance, prolonged binding and blindfolding, threats, insults and more.”
Middle East Monitor noted that the arrests are usually “accompanied by assaults and threats against detainees and their families, as well as widespread destruction of citizens’ homes.”
Muhammad a-Natsheh, 22, from the Tel Rumeidah neighborhood in central Hebron, told the humanitarian group that he was attacked by IDF troops on 14 July.
He recalled being stopped because he was carrying wood for a renovation project at his home. He said he was taken to a military base while handcuffed and blindfolded. Once at the military outpost, one of the soldiers told him in Arabic: “We’ll rape you.”
“One of them grabbed my head, and another soldier tried to open my mouth and shove a rubber object in there. I worked hard not to open my mouth. I heard him saying in Hebrew: ‘Film him, film him.’ At that point, one of the soldiers came up to me and put out his cigarette on my right leg. 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.”
He was eventually released.
The UN said in a press release last February that it obtained credible reports that Israeli troops have been committing human rights violations against Palestinian women and girls in Gaza and the West Bank that include arbitrary executions and rape.
UN experts expressed dismay over the credible reports and said some of these women and girls were deliberately targeted while fleeing and waving white flags. These experts also raised concerns about the arbitrary detention of hundreds.
Seymour Hersh, the Pulitzer-prize-winning journalist, posted on his Substack last month that Israel will formally annex the West Bank in the “very near future – perhaps in two weeks” to kill any talk of a two-state solution.
Top Israeli officials have celebrated Donald Trump’s election in the U.S. and see their best possibility ever in annexing the occupied West Bank, which has long been the goal of the Israeli government.
Trump, the pro-Israel extremist in the U.S., posted on Truth Social Monday that there will be “hell to pay” in the Middle East if Hamas does not release the remaining 101 hostages believed to still be in its possession.
Patrick Henningsen, the political commentator, posted in response: “WHAT A COMPLETE JOKE. What’s Trump going to do? Bomb Gaza some more? (we are living in a dark satire sketch)”