JERUSALEM — Israeli soldiers accused of harming Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip over the last five years have been indicted in less than 1% of the hundreds of complaints against them, an Israeli rights group reported. The watchdog argued that Israel’s military systematically fails to conduct a credible prosecution of itself.
Between 2017 and 2021, the Israeli military received 1,260 cases of alleged offenses by Israeli soldiers against Palestinians, including 409 cases involving the killing of Palestinians, according to military data obtained by the group Yesh Din and released Wednesday after a freedom of information request.
The Israeli military opened 248 criminal investigations into instances of possible misconduct in response to those complaints — just 21.4% of the total, Yesh Din said. Only 11 investigations during that five year period have yielded indictments. In those cases, Israel’s military prosecutors acted with leniency toward convicted soldiers, the group added, with those sentenced for killing Palestinians serving only short-term military community service.
“This conduct demonstrates the military law enforcement system’s complete disregard for Palestinians’ lives (and) precludes any possibility of deterrence,” Yesh Din said.
In response to a request for comment, the Israeli military contended there had been more charges filed against soldiers than Yesh Din had reported, with a total of 31 indictments lodged during the five-year period for offenses also involving the use of weapons, property damage and violence against Palestinians.
“It should be noted that the majority of the proceedings ended in a punishment that includes actual imprisonment, in accordance with the general punishment policy,” the military said.
Rights groups and critics long have alleged Israeli military investigations into the killings of Palestinians reflect a pattern of impunity. B’Tselem, a leading Israeli watchdog, grew so frustrated with the system that in 2016 it dismissed the probes as a whitewash and halted its decades-long practice of assisting investigations.
The Israeli army says it has proved that its investigations are independent and professional. It attributed the many challenges to “a lack of cooperation on the part of the complainants.”
“The likelihood of discovering the truth is directly impacted by the lack of cooperation,” it said.
The 1,260 complaints lodged against the military by victims, lawyers, the…
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