Report: Israel promoted Netzah Yehuda commanders to senior positions
Occupied Palestine (Quds News Network)- Former commanders of the Netzah Yehuda battalion, an Israeli military unit that has been criticized by the United States for gross human rights violations against the Palestinian people in the occupied West Bank prior to October 7, including raping a child and murdering an American citizen, have been promoted to senior positions in the Israeli army and are now active in training Israeli ground troops as well as running operations in Gaza, according to a new investigation by the CNN.
The investigation is based on a whistleblower testimony from a former soldier of the unit and a facial recognition analysis. It found out that three former commanders of the Netzah Yehuda battalion – who were in charge of the unit at the time of abuses in the West Bank – have risen through the ranks of the Israeli military.
The investigation confirms that the battalion’s commanders “played a key role in perpetuating a culture of violence, both by standing by as it happened and promoting it.”
Last April, the US State Department said that it had determined five Israeli security units had committed gross violations of human rights before October 7th. The department claimed that four of the units had “effectively remediated,” or reformed themselves.
The report cited current and former US officials as stating that the five Israeli units were not the only ones the State Department had been examining and that three additional units had been guilty of abuses prior to October 7. The units are the Yamam, the Israel Border Police and Internal Security Forces connected to the Moscobiyya detention center.
