Sunday, February 26, 2023, 12:23 At the end of last week, the Jerusalem Magistrates Court conditionally released the last two of the detainees who were detained in police raids in Yitzhar and Bruchin earlier in the week. Three additional detainees from the raids were released after being held by the police for several hours. The detentions were carried out at the detainees’ homes, in front of their wives and children, and before sunrise. Prior to the detentions, the media had publicized a video recording in which the detainees were seen arguing with soldiers. Click here and here for additional detentions for the same video recording.
One of the detainees, Meir Ettinger, stated that he had been assaulted by a prison guard while he was in remand. In a court hearing regarding a request to extend his remand, Ettinger told the judge, “I asked if I could take a book that I had brought with me into the cell. The prison guard refused. Afterward, a more senior commander arrived and I asked him also if I could take the book. I was refused. The prison guard was angry that I had asked his commander. He put me in a room and demanded to conduct a full-body strip search. He stepped on my foot, twisted my ear, threw me to the ground, pulled at my clothes, and threatened to punch me and send me to the hospital.” Ettinger added that after the assault, the prison guard told him that there was no point in filing a complaint because “the Prison Service is higher than the High Court of Justice.”
After the incident, Honenu Attorney Eladi Weisel filed a complaint with the police on Ettinger’s behalf. Weisel also demanded that the recordings from the security cameras in the Russian Compound Detention Center that documented the incident be taken as evidence.
Honenu Attorney David HaLevi, who represented the detainees at the hearing last week, stated, “I welcome the decision to release my clients and regret the suffering caused to them by the completely false and unnecessary detention.”