At Youtube: “Israeli soldiers out of uniform violently detaining a Palestinian at Checkpoint 56, Tel Rumeida, Hebron”

Abir Kopty of the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee states:

The video shows a group of soldiers out of uniform beating Abd-Elaziz Elfakhouri (20) who was protesting the detention of his colleague taken by the same group of soldiers, and dragged into a house.

The soldiers gathered around the man and started beating him. He was shortly pushed and shoved down the hill towards the same building where the soldiers were still holding Elfakhouri’s friend behind closed doors. Elfakhouri was dropped to the ground and dragged across the concrete.

More soldiers came to the area and started shoving people away declaring it a Closed Military Zone, as one soldier out of uniform tried to steal several witnesses’ cameras and passports. In one case the soldier managed to take one passport and ran down the hill hiding amongst other soldiers. The soldiers kept the passport for 35 minutes and then handed it over to Israeli police officers while saying “Make sure to write down his name for the airport, so he can’t come back here.”

Elfakhouri and his friend were eventually put in military jeeps and taken to the military base even though police were present.

Issa Amr, coordinator of Youth Against Settlements says: “This is not the first case, in the last month we documented cases of soldiers out of uniform beating and detaining Palestinians. Whether uniformed or not, there is no accountability to the soldiers; when a soldier killed a woman and her daughter in Gaza in 2009, he was only sentenced for 45 days. Soldiers get the message that they have a free hand.”