Testimony: "I just saw the violence"
| Name: | Anonymous |
| Rank: | First Sergeant |
| Unit: | Nahal, 932nd Battalion |
| Location: | Hebron, West Bank |
| Date: | 2018 |
An Israeli soldier provides a testimony to Breaking the Silence in which he describes how no action was taken against a settler child who punched a Palestinian child.
Soldier: We were once on patrol and I think it was Rosh Hashanah, it was packed there. There’s a [Palestinian] boy with only one hand [and he lives] on the path to the Tomb of the Patriarchs from the Jewish neighborhood. And there was a boy, also 14 years old I think, who was talking to Yusuf (the Palestinian boy).
Interviewer: A settler kid?
Soldier: Yes. A settler kid but not at all from Hebron, he was like visiting someone. He suddenly punched Yusuf in the face and I didn’t know what had happened, I just saw the violence and we ran to him. But he ran away to Beit Rachel and [Beit] Leah (a Palestinian house in Hebron which was taken over by settlers in 2018) and we didn’t enter the house. The police arrived and they didn’t either, no one entered Beit Rachel and [Beit] Leah, [only] the settlers did. We knew he was there because he wasn’t anywhere else.
Interviewer: Then why didn’t you enter?
Soldier: I don’t know, I don’t know what happened. I was also annoyed there because I saw that Yusuf hadn’t done anything. Suddenly I saw a punch to the face, there was blood, my company commander arrives and the police arrive... I think they have a post close to the Tomb of the Patriarchs so it wasn’t much time. I see it as like a law, he (the settler boy) did something wrong but I don’t think that everyone wanted to catch him.
Interviewer: Why do you think they didn’t want to?
Soldier: I think that he was close to the post and close to someone who was with me in the company, and I think that if they had wanted to catch the kid, they could have.
Interviewer: The soldiers?
Soldier: Yes. I saw the boy enter a house, I didn’t see the police enter the house. I also saw the boy walking around the next day.
Interviewer: If the situation were reversed, say a 14-year-old Palestinian boy punches a Jewish boy, how do you think the incident would have unfolded based on your experience?
Soldier: You already know... He's automatically arrested. Within a second two soldiers jump on him and...
Interviewer: Arrest him?
Soldier: Yes, of course.
