that a team of its reporters He has been attacked and illegally detained for two hours by a group of Israeli soldiers who have openly acknowledged before the cameras that they actively collaborate with the settlers who have been accelerating their attacks against Palestinian communities in .
He has promised an immediate investigation into the incident reported by the network’s correspondent in Jerusalem, Jeremy Diamond, on his social networks late this past Friday, accompanied by a video of what happened while they were covering the consequences of an assault by settlers in the town of Tayasir, where the attackers have ended up installing a settlement considered illegal even by Israeli law itself.
While they were recording images of the town, and as shown in the video that accompanied the correspondent’s complaint, a group of Israeli soldiers approached the team and proceeded to arrest the journalists. Diamond has also claimed that the military attacked photojournalist Cyril Teophilos, also from CNN.
During the two hours they were detained, the team’s cameras They recorded statements by the Israeli military in which they openly acknowledged that they were acting outside of legality. “The entire West Bank is ours, not just ours, the Jews’ as well,” declares a soldier who knew the Israeli settler Yehudah Sherman, who died last week, run over by a Palestinian driver in an incident that the Army is investigating as a “terrorist attack.”
“If the Palestinians had killed your brother and the (Israeli) state did nothing about it, what would you do?”asks a soldier. At the end of the video, another recognizes that the settlement “will soon be legal.” “With your help?” asks the CNN journalist. “Of course,” the soldier responds.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights denounced last week that More than 36,000 Palestinians have been forced to move in just one year due to increasing violence by Israeli security forces and settlers in the West Bank, raising fears of “ethnic cleansing” in the area.
The Israel Defense Forces will investigate what happened
Israeli Army spokesman Nadav Shoshani has published a public apology, repudiated the actions of the military and assured that the Israel Defense Forces They will investigate what happened.
“The conduct and statements of the soldiers in this incident do not represent the (IDF) Defense Forces, they contravene what is expected of IDF soldiers and will be investigated,” he said.
“After receiving the report of the incident, we acted in real time to resolve the problem as soon as possible. I apologized privately and I repeat: this should not have happened. Our job is to maintain public order, and among other things, guarantee freedom of the press,” he added.
