Breaking The Silence Israeli group reported that several Israeli female soldiers testified... regarding “extra efforts” that female soldiers should conduct in order to be recognized and accepted by the fellow male soldiers....Somehow, a female combatant has to prove herself more, on the ground too. Again, a female combatant who can lash out is a serious fighter. Capable. A ball-breaker. There was one with me when I got there, she’d been there long before, she was – wow, everyone talked about what grit she had, because she could humiliate Arabs without batting an eyelash. That was the thing to do.
One of the soldiers said that she had to humiliate the Palestinians on roadblocks, to shout at them and even to beat them to achieve this recognition.
Another soldier said that she saw a fellow female soldier humiliating Palestinian residents “in a way that cannot be described by words”, and added that “you have to see it to realize how she behaves, how she humiliates the Palestinians without caring about anything”.
“Everybody is doing that”, the soldier added, “Soldiers and senior officers, nobody objects”.
Another female soldier said that they [female soldiers] had to beat Palestinian youths and men, and that they had to mistreat the residents regardless of their sex or age.
She said that when Border Policemen capture Palestinian workers staying in Israel without permits, they start chanting “for their victory” and then they start beating and kicking the Palestinian workers.
Sometimes, the soldiers ask the Palestinians to chant in praise of their unit, and that it became a requirement to humiliate the Palestinians and mistreat them.
At least 50 female soldiers testified on what the army is doing on roadblocks in the occupied West Bank, and at the Eretz Terminal between Gaza and Israel.
One of the soldiers said that the soldiers arrested a Palestinian youth who hurled stones at them in the center of Hebron, in the southern part of the West Bank.
One of the soldiers was so scared from the small stone hurled by the youth, fell into a ditch and broke his leg. The soldier was moved to an Israeli hospital while his comrades caught the Palestinian youth and deliberately broke his arm.
They forced him to lay his arm on a chair, and then they hit it with a sharp object, she added.
In another incident, a female soldier said that she heard a gunshot and rushed, along with other soldiers, to the scene to find a Palestinian youth bleeding after being shot in his abdomen.
The soldiers who were at the scene claimed that he tried to run away after he was asked to present his identity card. But the fact was that the identity card was already handed to the soldiers, as one of them was holding it.
She added that the soldiers involved in the incident were never questioned by their commanding officers.
Several female soldiers testified that both male and female soldiers beat Palestinian women on roadblocks, force them to slap themselves on the face, and sometimes the soldiers even punch and kick the women.……. Full story
Female soldiers break their silence
YNET"... "I don't know who or how, but I know that two of our soldiers put him [Palestinian child] in a jeep, and that two weeks later the kid was walking around with casts on both arms and legs…they talked about it in the unit quite a lot – about how they sat him down and put his hand on the chair and simply broke it right there on the chair."
...:"We caught a five-year-old…can't remember what he did…we were taking him back to the territories or something, and the officers just picked him up, slapped him around and put him in the jeep. The kid was crying and the officer next to me said 'don't cry' and started laughing at him. Finally the kid cracked a smile – and suddenly the officer gave him a punch in the stomach. Why? 'Don't laugh in my face' he said."
...it's boring, so we'd create some action. We'd get on the radio, and say they threw stones at us, then someone would be arrested, they'd start investigating him… There was a policewoman, she was bored, so okay, she said they threw stones at her. They asked her who threw them. 'I don't know, two in grey shirts, I didn't manage to see them.' They catch two guys with grey shirts… beat them. Is it them? 'No, I don't think so.' Okay, a whole incident, people get beaten up. Nothing happened that day."
...The soldier said she tried to protest, but was silenced by the commanding officers...
...Some of the testimonies document incidents of vandalism of Palestinian property, and even theft.... They take things all the time at checkpoints in the territories.
... Some of the female soldiers were shocked with the level of violence the settlers' children used against the Palestinians...
...told of how she once spit on a Palestinian in the street: "I don't think he even did anything. But again, it was cool and it was the only thing I could do to… you know, I couldn't take brag that I caught a terrorists… But I could spit on them and degrade them and laugh at them."
...She also said that, despite the clear orders to fire in the air or at the demonstrators' feet, it was common procedure to fire at the abdomen.
A female Border Guard officer in Jenin spoke of an incident in which a nine-year-old Palestinian, who tried to climb the fence, failed, and fled – was shot to death: "They fired… when he was already in the territories and posed no danger. The hit was in the abdomen area, they claimed he was on a bicycle and so they were unable to hit him in the legs."
But the soldier was most bewildered by what happened next between the four soldiers present: "They immediately got their stories straight… An investigation was carried out, at first they said it was an unjustified killing… In the end they claimed that he was checking out escape routes for terrorists or something… and they closed the case."
A female intelligence soldier who served near Etzion recounted an incident in which snipers killed a boy suspected of throwing a Molotov cocktail. The soldiers coordinated their stories, and the female soldier was shocked, mainly by the happy atmosphere that surrounding the incident: "It was written in the situation evaluation after the incident that from now on there will be quiet… This is the best kind of deterrence." ... Full story
Full document of testimonies
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