A report issued by the Israeli human rights center “B’Tselem” on Tuesday stated that there have been repeated cases of severe abuse carried out by Israeli soldiers against Palestinians in the center of the city of Hebron in the south of the occupied West Bank.
The report, entitled “Without a Halter: Soldiers’ Abuse of Palestinian Residents in the Center of Hebron,” is based on more than 20 statements made by Palestinians to the Center about the attacks they were subjected to between May and August 2024.
The center said that the victims spoke about how they were arrested by soldiers “completely randomly while they were walking in the streets of Hebron city, focusing on their daily affairs, and how they were beaten” in the streets or at military points.
He added, “People leave their homes and go about their daily lives, and they encounter soldiers who arrest them and beat them to the point of unconsciousness.”
The report notes that “the testimonies recorded by B’Tselem field researchers reveal a terrifying situation regarding the standards of behavior among Israeli soldiers and their use of extreme violence.”
According to the center’s general director, Yuli Novak, “more than a year after the brutal war waged by Israel against the Palestinian people, the harassment of Palestinian passers-by has become a desirable and even required behavior.”
She added: “What is happening is not individual cases observed here or there, nor a deviation from instructions, but rather a phenomenon that expresses a systematic approach, and is the result of the process of dehumanizing the Palestinians led by the Israeli government.”
B’Tselem indicated that the testimonies “contain a description of the violence, humiliation and abuse that the soldiers practiced against men, women, boys and children.”
The center quoted one of the victims as saying, “A series of acts of severe physical and psychological abuse included beatings, flogging, extinguishing cigarettes on the bodies of the victims, hitting the genitals, injecting unknown substances, tying up the limbs and blindfolding them for long hours, threats and insults, and so on.” .
In parallel with the genocide in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army expanded its operations in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, while settlers escalated their attacks against Palestinians and their property, resulting in a total of 801 deaths and the injury of about 6,450 Palestinians, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
With American support, Israel has been committing genocide in Gaza since October 7, 2023, leaving about 150,000 Palestinians martyred and wounded, most of them children and women, and more than 11,000 missing, amid massive destruction and famine that killed dozens of children and the elderly.