Israel Punishes Officers In Death Of Palestinian-American

JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli military said Tuesday it would reprimand a senior officer and remove two others from leadership roles over the death of a 78-year-old Palestinian who was dragged from a car, bound and blindfolded after being stopped at a checkpoint.

It said the soldiers believed Omar Asaad, who has U.S. citizenship, was asleep when they cut his zip-ties and left him face-down in an abandoned building where he had been detained with three other Palestinians last month. The other detainees said they did not know he was there until after the army left.

It’s unclear when exactly Asaad died. He was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead after the other detainees found him unconscious.

“The investigation concluded that the incident was a grave and unfortunate event, resulting from a moral failure and poor decision-making on the part of the soldiers,” the military said in a statement. A separate criminal investigation by the military police is still underway.

Asaad had extended family living in the United States. The State Department had expressed concern over his death and called for an investigation. Two members of Wisconsin’s congressional delegation called on the Biden administration to investigate.

Asaad was stopped at around 3 a.m. on Jan. 12 at a temporary checkpoint in his home village of Jiljiliya, in the West Bank. The military said he did not have any form of ID and “refused to cooperate with the security check.” Its investigation found there was no use of violence “apart from when (Asaad) was apprehended after refusing to cooperate.”

It said the soldiers “did not identify signs of distress” when they released the detainees a half-hour later. They “assumed that (Asaad) was asleep and did not try to wake him.”

The military said the commander of the battalion will be reprimanded and that the platoon commander and company commander will both be removed from their positions and barred from commanding roles for two years.