from
Haaretz Daily
Soldier charged with making Palestinian woman drink poison
By Gideon Alon and Amos Harel
A woman soldier was yesterday charged with forcing a Palestinian woman at gunpoint to drink a highly toxic liquid that made her blind and that caused external and internal burns that needed hospital treatment.
The Military Court of Southern Command charged the woman, who has been under arrest for a month, with illegal use of a firearm, aggravated assault and obstruction of justice.
Meanwhile the Knesset Law Committee yesterday took a broader look at human rights violations in the territories during the intifada, at a discussion under the heading "safeguarding human rights while fighting terrorism." The director of the International Section of the State Prosecutor's office, attorney Irit Kahan, and the judge advocate general, Major General Menachem Finkelstein attended the meeting.
Kahan specifically mentioned the case of the woman soldier and said the incident happened in January at the Tufach IDF position, near Khan Yunes in the Gaza Strip.
The senior state attorney said the Palestinian woman was asked what she carried in a bottle and when she said "water," the soldier allegedly ordered her to "drink the water" and the Palestinian woman refused.
When the Palestinian woman eventually was forced to drink the liquid, which was a chemical and not water, some sprayed in her eyes and she became blind."
However, the prosecution charges the soldier with aiming an automatic rifle at the head of the Palestinian woman and forcing her to drink the liquid - reportedly, an industrial toxin used to dry fiberglass.
The prosecutor says the Palestinian woman suffered burns to her mouth and internally, and had to be hospitalized, but makes no mention of the blindness she is said to have suffered.
Oded Saborai, the soldier's defense attorney, yesterday argued that his client's response was "within her authority and part of her responsibility in view of specific warnings at that time suggesting that terrorist organizations intended to bring poisons into Israel to use in mass attacks." Saborai says that the soldier's version of the incident is corroborated by another soldier at the scene.
According to JAG Finkelstein, this does not appear to be an isolated incident since the start of the intifada. The senior officer said that in September 2000, the Military Police began 360 investigations, among them 153 involving violence, 55 on alleged shooting violations, 134 probes into property theft or damage, and 18 into other issues, such as unjustly delaying pregnant women at road blocks.
Finkelstein said that so far, charges were brought against soldiers in 44 cases, 23 in cases involving property, 14 for violence, and six incidents where shooting resulted in death.
The JAG gave an example of five IDF soldiers sentenced to five months imprisonment for an incident in southern Hebron, and pointed to the opening of a special court martial, today, of a colonel who used a Palestinian as a human shield.
He also referred to charges brought against a deputy battalion commander for allegedly causing the death of a young Palestinian man.
The head of Central Command, Major General Moshe Kaplinsky, who also attended the meeting, said that during the intifada, 149 homes of Palestinians were razed because of the families' relation to a suicide bomber.
Members of the committee pressed the IDF officers on the army's policies regarding roadblocks, razing homes, removing outposts and assassinations of suspected terrorists. Yuli Tamir, MK (Labor), recommended that video cameras be stationed at roadblocks to discourage violations of human rights.
Zahava Gal-On, MK (Meretz), said that the data offered by the officers suggests that the soldiers are trigger-happy.
"If out of 2000 Palestinian deaths [during the intifada] charges were only brought in six cases, this suggests a disdainful approach to human life and this should be turning on a warning light," Gal-On said.