Haircut practice
Akiva Eldar
Haaretz, 31 December 2002
Two weeks ago, a letter was quoted in "Haaretz", in which a Military Police investigator asked B'Tselem, the human rights monitoring group, to find four Palestinians who complained about some soldiers at a checkpoint who stole their money. It very quickly was discovered that one of the Palestinians was easy to find - he was in the Megiddo detention center for Palestinians arrested in recent months. The Military Police investigator also wanted B'Tselem to help it with some translation work. B'Tselem people thought the investigator's letter was the height of arrogance, but then Najib Abu Rakiyeh, a B'Tselem field worker found a new letter from a Military police investigator.
The army detective (his name is known to this reporter) reports to Abu Rakiyeh that another complaint has come to the Military Police, from two Palestinians saying they were used as human shields during IDF searches. But this time, the investigator doesn't make do with asking the B'Tselem people to find the Palestinian complainants. The investigator, a sergeant major in the Military Police, wants Abu Rakiyeh to take the Palestinians' "detailed testimony about the incident." Just to make sure B'Tselem understands what he wants, he added to the letter a photocopy of B'Tselem's own petition to the High Court of Justice regarding IDF violations of the court order banning "neighborhood practice," in which Palestinians who live near wanted suspects are used as human shields while the army makes the arrest.
Before the B'Tselem people could recover from that absurdity, the organization's legal adviser, Yael Stein, received another letter, this time from the IDF Spokeswoman's Office. In response to B'Tselem questions about a case of soldiers abusing Palestinians in Hebron, the head of the assistance department, Capt. Henrietta Levy, "calls" on B'Tselem field researchers "to talk with the relevant authorities in the IDF to help locate the soldiers involved in the case, so it can be investigated."
They are having a difficult time trying to decide at the B'Tselem offices whether to laugh or scream. Someone proposed that Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon grant lieutenant's bars to the head of B'Tselem's field work team in Hebron, Mussa Abu Hashash, so the cooperation he gets from "the relevant IDF authorities," isn't the usual "get out of here before I throw you in the calaboose."
In any case, according to evidence taken by Hashash, the four soldiers the IDF can't seem to find, walked into a barbershop in H2, the Palestinian part of Hebron, four weeks ago, today. One of the soldiers ordered the owner of the barbershop, Bassem Masawde, 24, to sit in one of the barber chairs. The soldier then began to shave Masawde's head with the electric razor. Masawde tried to ask what the soldier was doing, and was smacked and told to be silent. The soldier kept shaving, ignoring Masawde's request to stop. When he finished cutting off Masawde's hair, the soldier ordered Wayal Abu Rumeila, 19, who was in the barber shop at the time, to sit in the barber chair, and he too was given a close-cut hair cut by the soldier.
Then, say the eyewitnesses, the soldier approached the 19-year-old with a bottle of shampoo, and ordered the youth to open his mouth. When Rumeila refused, the soldier struck him with a metal bucket in the shop, knocking Rumeila to the floor with a bloody nose, crying. The soldier kicked him in the stomach, saying if Rumeila didn't shut up, the soldier would shoot him in the head. The entire time, the other three soldiers were slapping around three other Palestinians in the barber shop - and one of the soldiers grabbed Bilal Al Jerby, and using Jerby as a shield, and Jerby's shoulder as a resting place for his rifle barrel, began shooting at children who started throwing stones.
This horrifying testimony, was sent, as usual, to the IDF by B'Tselem. Now the IDF wants B'Tselem to find the suspected soldiers.
If not for the international interest in the death of Shadeen Abu Hilja, perhaps B'Tselem's people would be searching on behalf of the IDF for the soldier who shot her, as well. Abu Hilja, 60, was shot dead on October 11, while sitting on her porch and embroidering. Her husband, a doctor, and her son, a university lecturer, were also wounded by the burst of bullets fired from a military jeep at them.
It is possible that because he knows that President Bush is personally waiting for the results of the inquiry into how Abu Hilja, an internationally known peace activist, was killed, Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon decided to send the inquiry results back to the Judge Advocat General's office for more investigation. According to a military source, the report Ya'alon received on the incident said the woman was killed by a "stray bullet." The Hilja family is saving all 15 bullets fired at them from the jeep.
