Published: 10 February 2025
Last updated: 11 February 2025
This month, for the first time since the beginning of the Gaza War, an Israeli military court sentenced an Israeli soldier to seven months in prison and demotion in rank for the severe assault of a Palestinian prisoner in an Israeli jail.
The landmark case has been only minimally reported in the domestic or foreign media. Yet it could have tremendous international and moral significance for Israel.
Reservist Israel Halabi, 25, was was convicted as part of a plea deal for assaults committed between January and June 2024 at the Sde Teiman detention centre in southern Israel, where Palestinians captured in Gaza, including those who took part in the atrocities of October 7, were held until they could be moved to other Israeli prisons.
The court found that while guarding trucks transporting these prisoners, Halabi beat handcuffed and blindfolded detainees and forced them to make animal noises, sing laudatory Israeli songs and curse their leaders and people.
He persisted, even when another soldier told him to stop – and asked other soldiers, as yet unidentified, to record his behaviour. An officer in the unit reported Halabi to the military police, which led to his trial and conviction. The military court ruled that Hajabi's actions were "serious and severe", and emphasised that IDF soldiers “have a duty to use the force entrusted to them in accordance with IDF values and orders, at all times, especially during wartime”.
However, this war has run for nearly a year and a half – and this is the first conviction.
