Israeli occupation authorities yesterday arrested nine individuals, including eight soldiers and police officers, for assaulting and abducting a Palestinian man last August in the Occupied West Bank.
The Israeli suspects are accused of attacking Laith Awaine, a Palestinian resident of Bethlehem, who was visiting Auja Stream with friends when the violent incident occurred.
According to witness accounts provided to Haaretz, the Israeli soldiers and officers accused Awaine and others present of being associated with Hamas, after which they restrained him with handcuffs, beat him using a wooden object and the butt of an M16 rifle, and threw him into the stream.
Awaine was later abandoned on a road several miles from the scene of the attack. Two days after the attack, Haaretz reported accounts from witnesses. Israeli Border Police, the army and police denied that any officers or soldiers were present in the area at the time.
The witnesses, friends of Laith Awaine, recounted that masked Israeli forces restrained him, blindfolded him, and forced the rest of the group to remain inside one of their vehicles.
Awaine was later found unconscious and taken to the Turkish Hospital in Tubas, located in the northern West Bank. According to the hospital’s medical report, he arrived still unconscious, with extensive injuries, including broken teeth, a split lip, leg wounds, back and eye trauma and fractures in his vertebrae and ribs.
An investigative team including Israeli police and military personnel is handling the case, reported Haaretz.
Meanwhile, security sources told Ynet that there were no indications that the Palestinian man was actually connected to Hamas. The Israeli suspects were set to appear at the Rishon Lezion Magistrate’s Court, while the soldiers who were involved were set to appear before a military court.
In response, Laith Awaine told Haaretz that he continues to suffer back pain as a result of the attack. He also shared that he used to frequently visit Auja Stream with friends but has avoided the area since the attack.
All parts of the Occupied West Bank and Jerusalem are witnessing raids and incursions into villages and towns by the occupation forces and illegal Jewish settlers. All of Israel’s settlements and the settlers who live in them are illegal under international law. The International Court of Law reiterated this fact in July and ruled that the Israeli occupation must end.
Armed raids by Israelis, soldiers and settlers alike, often both together, lead to confrontations with local residents (very rarely of settlers), arrests and the firing of live and rubber bullets and toxic tear gas bombs at Palestinians. The number and frequency of these incursions has increased in conjunction with the unprecedented and ongoing Israeli genocide in the Gaza Strip since October last year.
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