Riots in defense of Israeli troops accused of gang rape 'halted' Lebanon prep: Army
Settlers, far-right activists, and government officials stormed two military sites on Monday after nine soldiers were arrested for brutally assaulting a Palestinian prisoner
The Israeli military halted high-level discussions on escalating the war against Hezbollah in Lebanon due to the settler riots that erupted on 29 July following the arrest of several soldiers responsible for the sexual assault of a Palestinian prisoner at the notorious Sde Teiman detention center, Hebrew media reported.
“The IDF says that Monday's incidents at both Sde Teiman and Beit Lid has harmed national security, since the army was forced to halt discussions and situation assessments vis-à-vis the northern front for many hours in order to address the disturbance,” Haaretz newspaper reported on 30 July.
The army said it was “forced to redeploy troops from the West Bank to secure the Beit Lid military court and would reinforce them with additional forces” the next day, Haaretz added.
According to Maariv newspaper, the Israeli army also withdrew some of its forces from the Gaza Strip, moving them towards the Beit Lid base, where the soldiers are being held.
Tel Aviv was holding high-level deliberations on its plans to respond to a missile strike that killed 12 Syrians living under Israeli occupation in Golan Heights on Saturday. Israel blamed Hezbollah, vowing to escalate its attacks on Lebanon in response to the killings, which many said were the result of an Iron Dome interceptor. The Lebanese resistance categorically denied its involvement.
However, Israeli settlers began rioting on 29 July after Israeli military police stormed the Sde Teiman detention center – known for its brutal and inhumane treatment of Palestinian detainees – and arrested nine soldiers behind the sexual assault of a Palestinian prisoner. A tenth prisoner was not immediately detained, according to the army.
The prisoner had been raped violently by the soldiers to the point where the prisoner required hospitalization, resulting in the opening of an investigation.
Israeli settlers, far-right activists, and Knesset members broke into the Sde Teiman detention center in defense of the detained soldiers. National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and other officials urged their followers to storm the facility and demand the release of the soldiers.
Members of the Knesset representing several political parties, including the Likud, also took part in the riots. After the nine soldiers were moved to the Beit Lid base for questioning, settler rioters also arrived at the site.
Clashes at Beit Lid erupted between the settler activists and protesters on the one hand – numbered at around 1,200 – and Israeli police on the other.
Police said the riots were dissipated in minutes. No arrests have been announced.
The army’s Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi, who supported the probe into the rape, visited Beit Lid after the incident was over.
“We came to Beit Lid… to make sure that nothing more serious happens. The arrival of rioters and attempts to break into the bases is serious behavior, against the law, bordering on anarchy, harming the IDF, the security of the state and the war effort,” Halevi said.
Retired Israeli general and former head of the army’s operations directorate, Israel Ziv, said in reference to the riots that he was concerned about the “dissolution of the army, but also about the dissolution of the State of Israel.”
The arrested soldiers are expected to be brought to the Camp Gur military court for a hearing on 30 July.
Hebrew news outlet Channel 14 reported on 29 July that the soldiers' arrest warrants were canceled and that military police limited themselves to just an interrogation.
Journalists and observers have highlighted that the incident brings to light the deep divisions in Israeli society, particularly between the far-right religious settlers who support Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition and those on the other side of Israel’s political spectrum.
These tensions had already been surfacing throughout the war and the months before it, during Netanyahu’s campaign for a judicial overhaul last year.
“The real effect of what is happening is that it brings Zionist society closer to civil war. Religious Zionism is stubborn, violent, and is ready to do anything in order to control the state and the army,” Palestinian journalist Azzam Abu al-Adas wrote on 30 July.
The repercussions of this incident “will not stop. It is a gift that the extreme right, with its stupidity and brutality, offers to the Palestinian people [and resistance] at the most critical and sensitive of times,” he added.