Israel soldiers filmed assaulting father in front of his young child

Israeli occupation forces were filmed yesterday assaulting a Palestinian father in front of his small child, reported the Times of Israel.

The footage, which went viral on social media, was recorded in Hebron, the occupied West Bank, where Israeli forces protect a small, radical settler population. Both soldiers and settlers regularly harass and attack local Palestinians, who are subjected to numerous movement restrictions.

The video shows two soldiers shouting at the father, claiming that the small boy had been throwing stones. The father expresses incredulity at the accusation, and replies his son is just five-years old. 

The soldier replied that he does not care how old the child is, at which point another soldier joins, and both attack the man, who tells them: “don’t raise your hands on me”.

After a few seconds, the soldiers violently shove the man again, all while the little boy looks on. “One of them then appears to cock his gun and aim it at the father as he walks away.”

The Times of Israel reported that the Israeli military said it was “looking into the incident”.

The new clip comes days after a video was published showing an incident from May last year, when a Border Police officer shot an unarmed Palestinian civilian as he walked away.

The officer used supposedly “less lethal” sponge-tipped bullet, which have – as the report noted – “been responsible for a number of serious injuries and deaths”.

Israeli occupation forces routinely kill and injure Palestinians with live fire, other forms of ammunition, or through assaults, at checkpoints, during detention raids, or suppressing protests.

Israeli forces are very rarely subjected to legal accountability for such actions, and even then, typically receive lenient sentences.

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