Five soldiers from the IDF's ultra-Orthodox Netzah Yehuda Battalion were indicted on Thursday for allegedly beating two Palestinian prisoners.
The soldiers are indicted on counts of extreme abuse and causing serious injury. The soldiers allegedly slapped and punched the prisoners, with their hands as well as blunt instruments, while the prisoners were handcuffed and blindfolded.
Reports from the time the soldiers were arrested, on Jan. 9, said that the prisoners sustained injuries so serious they were no longer fit for questioning.
Two of the soldiers were indicted on an additional count of judicial interference after they coordinated their version of events before speaking to investigators.
The Military Advocate General has asked that the soldiers be remanded until legal proceedings can be concluded. Their commander, a lieutenant, is under open arrest. The prosecution will decide his case separately from that of his subordinates'.
The IDF defense attorney representing the soldiers said: "This is an indictment that should never have been served in the first place. We trust that in the end, the court will clarify the facts and the circumstance and things will appear differently.
"These are outstanding soldiers, salt of the earth, whose comrades were murdered only a month ago by a terrorist and who were forced into an impossible situation – to handle the arrest of terrorists who were involved in their friends' murder."
The soldiers under indictment lost their comrades Staff Sgt. Yovel Mor Yosef and Sgt. Yosef Cohen in a terrorist shooting last December at the Givat Asaf outpost in Samaria, where they were on guard duty.
On Jan. 7, after a monthlong manhunt, security forces tracked down the shooter, Assam Barghouti, who was also involved in a shooting that wounded seven Israelis outside the settlement of Ofra in November. One of the victims of the attack was Shira Ish-Ran, who was 30 weeks pregnant. Her son, Amiad Yisrael, was delivered in an emergency cesarean section but died a few days later.
"Sadly, the indictment reflects a lack of understanding on the part of the system of the impossible situation the soldiers were in. During the trial, it will be necessary to look at the failure to provide the soldiers with what they needed after the incident [at Givat Asaf], both in terms of [support from] their commanders and in terms of mental health services," the suspects' defense attorney said.
