In one of the claims filed by HaMoked, soldiers maltreated two Palestinian brothers, who were driving their trucks on Route 60, not far from Hebron. The complaint also involved another case, in which soldiers removed one of the two brothers from his truck and took him to a nearby base, where they beat him while he was handcuffed and blindfolded. The soldiers did not seek to question him, but only wanted “to pass their time,” in their words. They also tried to force him to drink water, despite his assertions that he was in the midst of the Ramadan fast. After the soldiers finished their misdeeds, they threw him off on a road in Hebron. The Military Police investigation was closed because, as claimed, no sufficient evidence against the soldiers was found.
For the complaint filed by HaMoked, click here. The other claim filed by HaMoked involves a truck driver accompanying his friend transporting watermelons from Jerusalem to Hebron. The two were detained, along with other drivers, near the entrance to Hebron. The plaintiff was brutally beaten by an officer after he dared to refuse to obey the order of a soldier to help him unload goods from another truck, whose driver had also been detained. This plaintiff too was taken to a closed space, where he was handcuffed and blindfolded, and was not given food or water until the next morning. The soldiers confiscated the keys to the truck that the two were in. The keys were never returned to them. Despite HaMoked's requests to the army on the day of the incident, the Judge Advocate's Office delayed in opening an investigation. The Military Police did not question the plaintiff until some
eighteen months passed. Because of this great delay in handling the matter, it is very unlikely that the investigation will get to the truth. At the time the suit was filed, the plaintiff had not been informed that the investigation had ended.
