Less than 1 percent of Israel army probes yield prosecution: watchdog
Out of more than a thousand cases of alleged offences by Israeli soldiers against Palestinians, only 11 have yielded an indictment, according to the rights group Yesh Din. | 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 percent 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 percent 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.
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