A Palestinian man who was arrested by the Israeli occupation forces and had a Star of David symbol branded on his face has been released to house arrest by an Israeli court on Sunday. The court said that the release was due to the Israeli police’s misconduct and the lack of evidence for the drug smuggling charges against him.
Arwah Sheikh Ali, from the Shuafat refugee camp in occupied Jerusalem, was arrested last week by a team of 16 Israeli officers who allegedly did not activate their body cameras during the operation. Sheikh Ali was beaten and tortured by the Israeli officers, and one of them used a metallic tool or instrument to carve the Star of David on his face.
The Israeli police denied the allegations and said that the wound on Sheikh Ali’s face was likely caused by an “article of clothing worn by one of the officers, specifically his shoe laces.” However, an Israeli forensic expert, Avner Rosengarten, said that there was no match between the alleged shoe and laces and the mark on Sheikh Ali’s face, and that it seemed that the markings were created by a metallic tool or instrument.
The Israeli court also addressed the Israeli police for leaving Sheikh Ali in a holding cell instead of transferring him to a proper facility, as ordered by the court. Sheikh Ali’s lawyer said that his client was denied medical treatment and legal counsel for four days, and that he was only transferred to a detention center on Saturday.
Sheikh Ali’s case has sparked outrage among Palestinians and human rights activists, who accused the Israeli police of racism, brutality, and humiliation. They also called for an independent investigation into the incident and demanded accountability for the officers involved.
Sheikh Ali’s case is not an isolated incident, but rather a reflection of the systematic violence and discrimination that Palestinians face under Israeli occupation and within Israel itself. According to Amnesty International, Israeli police have committed a catalogue of violations against Palestinians living beyond the Green Line and occupied Jerusalem, carrying out a discriminatory repressive campaign including sweeping mass arrests, using unlawful force against peaceful protesters, and subjecting detainees to torture and other ill-treatment, during and after the Israeli aggression on Gaza in 2021. The report also said that Israeli police have failed to protect Palestinian citizens of Israel from premeditated attacks by groups of armed Jewish supremacists, even when plans were publicized in advance and the Israeli police knew or should have known of them.
According to Human Rights Watch, Israeli authorities systematically favor Jewish Israelis and treat Palestinians unfairly in most areas of life. The report states that the goal of keeping Jewish Israeli dominance over population, politics, and land has long influenced the Israeli government actions. To achieve this aim, the Israeli occupation have deprived, restricted, forcibly separated, and oppressed Palestinians based on their identity with different levels of severity. The report also states that in some areas, these violations are so extreme that they constitute the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution.
Palestinians living beyond the Green Line also suffer from a rise in organized crime and murder rate, which are largely neglected by the Israeli police. The NGO Mossawa said that 50 percent of overall violent crime in Israel affects Palestinians, even though they comprise only 20 percent of the population. The NGO also reported that the Israeli police solved only seven percent of the cases where Palestinians were killed, while they solved more than 70 percent of the crimes against Jews on average.
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