A riot for impunity shows Israel’s proud embrace of its crimes

Soldiers prevent protesters from entering the Beit Lid military base, 29 July 2024

Oren Ziv writes in +972 on 1 August 2024:

Among the hundreds of right-wing Israeli activists demonstrating outside the Beit Lid army base on the night of July 29, a group of masked soldiers carrying weapons stood out in the crowd. The soldiers were easily identifiable by the illustration on their badges: a snake inside the Star of David, the insignia of Force 100. Established in the wake of the First Intifada, Force 100 is an IDF unit responsible for overseeing Palestinian detainees and repressing uprisings in military prisons. Since October, the unit has also operated the Sde Teiman military base, where Palestinians from the Gaza Strip have been detained, abused, and tortured.

The soldiers came to Beit Lid to support and demand the release of ten of their comrades who had been arrested on suspicion of raping a Palestinian detainee at Sde Teiman. The detainee, according to Physicians for Human Rights – Israel (PHRI), was hospitalized three weeks ago with severe injuries to his rectum. Earlier that Monday, protesters and far-right Knesset members amassed outside of Sde Teiman after Israeli military police entered the base to detain the suspects, which included a commander in Force 100.

“The Military Advocate General [Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi] loves Nukhba,” read one sign outside Beit Lid, referring to the elite military unit of Hamas whose members the protesters believed were detained at Sde Teiman. “The Military Advocate General is a criminal,” read another.

Even lawmakers joined the attacks on Tomer-Yerushalmi. “I came to Sde Teiman to tell our fighters that we are with you, we will protect you,” declared Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) MK Limor Son Har-Melech, in a video posted from outside the detention center. “We will never allow the criminal Military Advocate General to hurt you. She cares about the Nukhba terrorists and cares about their rights, instead of caring for our fighters, she is weakening our fighters. History will judge her and we will judge her too.” Chanting at the soldiers and policemen guarding Beit Lid, protesters shouted, “Traitors!”

Along with members of Force 100, the demonstrators included Kahanists, hilltop settler youth from the occupied West Bank, supporters of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and viewers of the TV station Channel 14. In the past, it was possible to say that these groups were a political minority. But today, they are in the government, they run the country’s law enforcement, and they are the face of Israel. One Israeli news headline said that the protesters “declared war on the State of Israel,” but they are in fact the state — a fact made clear by the support they received from ministers and parliamentarians.

For much of the demonstration, masked Force 100 soldiers stood directly in front of the few policemen and soldiers trying to prevent the rioters from entering the base. Yet the officers on guard did very little to disperse the crowd.

The police did not use horses or water cannon vehicles — tactics that are familiar to every Palestinian, Ethiopian, or ultra-Orthodox Israeli who has dared to protest. Even after demonstrators breached the entrances and broke into Sde Teiman, and later into Beit Lid, no one was arrested or even identified by the police. Only after many minutes, soldiers, some with shields and clubs, forcibly evacuated the rioters from Beit Lid. During the mass anti-government demonstrators in 2023, some protesters were stripped of gun licenses and others removed from army reserve duty after being arrested; it is clear that none of this will happen to Monday’s rioters.

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The terrifying sight of armed Israeli militias is well known to Palestinians and anti-occupation activists in the West Bank. In recent years, masked men, both soldiers and settlers, have been main agents of the occupation’s oppressive laws, even giving orders to Israeli police and other soldiers. Since the start of the war on Gaza, Jewish militias have operated throughout the country under the guise of “alert squads.” So on Monday, it was not out of the ordinary to see the gunmen walk around the demonstration unhindered.

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