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Saturday 18 May 2024
LOCAL EDITION
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LOCAL EDITION
A Lebanese soldier points his rocket-propelled-grenade toward an Israeli Merkava tank in the disputed Kfar Chouba hills along the border, south Lebanon, Friday, June 9, 2023. (AP Photo/Mohammad Zaatari)
Israel's Military Advocate General has said that soldiers who left a Palestinian-American man outside overnight after detaining him and who was later found dead will not be criminally prosecuted but will face disciplinary measures.
Israeli forces detained 78-year-old Omar Abdalmajeed Asad at a makeshift checkpoint in his West Bank hometown of Jiljilya last January.
The soldiers left him supine and unresponsive at a construction site, saying they assumed he had fallen asleep.
Asad was later found dead in the early morning with a plastic zip tie still around one wrist.
The military said Asad had "loudly and persistently" resisted attempts by Israeli soldiers to lead him from his car to the security checkpoint.
Due to his refusal to cooperate, the soldiers temporarily gagged him with a strip of cloth and cuffed his hands with a zip tie, it said.
Following an initial probe, the military dismissed two officers and reprimanded a battalion commander over Asad's death, which it said resulted from "a moral failure and poor decision-making".
On Tuesday, the army's chief legal body said in a statement its decision was made "following the hearings and after a thorough examination of the investigation materials, which indicated no causal link was found between the errors in the conduct of the soldiers and [Asad's] death".
A Palestinian autopsy found that Asad, a former Milwaukee, Wisconsin, resident who had a history of heart problems, had suffered cardiac arrest caused by stress.
Palestinian officials attributed this to him having been manhandled by the Israeli soldiers.
Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh at the time has blamed Israeli forces for the man's death, calling it a "crime".
The Israeli military said a medical official found it impossible to determine that Asad's death was caused specifically by the soldiers' conduct, and that the soldiers could not have been aware of his medical condition.
It said the military laments Asad's death "and works to prevent the recurrence of such incidents".
Israelis rarely held responsible
Washington at the time said it was "deeply concerned" and expected "a thorough criminal investigation and full accountability".
Palestine's leaders have called for the soldiers involved to be prosecuted in an international court.
Human rights groups have long argued that Israel rarely holds soldiers accountable for the deaths of Palestinians, with military investigations often reflecting a pattern of impunity.
A report by Israeli rights group Yesh Din based on military data from 2017 to 2021 found that Israeli soldiers were prosecuted in less than 1 percent of hundreds of complaints filed against them on alleged offences against Palestinians.
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.
In rare cases where soldiers were convicted of harming Palestinians, the military courts handed extremely lenient sentences, demonstrating "a reluctance on the part of the military law enforcement system to take appropriate action concerning crimes committed by soldiers against Palestinians," the group said.
High-profile cases, like those of Abu Akleh and Asad, have sparked outrage over the dangers of life in the occupied West Bank.
Palestinians say they suffer systematic mistreatment living under military occupation.
Family not surprised
Israel announced its decision not to file charges in Asad's case just before 11 pm [local time].
The news did not surprise Nawaf Asad, Omar's brother living in Virginia.
"Israel somehow gets away with anything it wants," he said. "It's still clear to us that the soldiers acted criminally."
He said his family needed time to determine their next steps. "I still want to see justice somehow," he said.
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Source: TRT
