IDF pulls entire battalion from West Bank action after alleged assault of CNN crew

In an unprecedented move, the Israel Defense Forces said early Monday morning that IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir had ordered the removal of an entire battalion from action in the West Bank following an incident last week in which soldiers detained and allegedly assaulted a CNN crew.

The Menashe Regional Brigade’s 941st “Netzah Israel” Battalion, a reserve unit made up mostly of several hundred former soldiers of the Kfir Brigade’s Netzah Yehuda Battalion, was due to end its activities in the West Bank at the end of next month.

But on Friday, CNN’s Jeremy Diamond said a soldier put his cameraman in a chokehold as troops tried to prevent them from filming at an illegal West Bank outpost. Soldiers were caught on camera saying the entire West Bank belongs to Jews and that they were avenging the killing of a settler days earlier.

Two of the soldiers told the reporters they had been friends with 18-year-old Yehuda Sherman, whose death in a suspected ramming attack near Nablus last Saturday triggered a wave of settler violence.

In CNN’s reportage, a soldier identified as Meir could be heard telling CNN Diamond that the soldiers were carrying out “revenge” for Sherman’s death, adding: “Listen, at the end of the day, if the state doesn’t address what they did — those who murdered the settler… what do you expect us to do?”

Diamond and his colleagues wrote on CNN, “The two hours we spent detained… laid bare the settler ideology motivating many of the soldiers who operate in the occupied West Bank – and the ways in which soldiers frequently act in service of the settler movement.”

In response to the report, the IDF told CNN that “the actions and behavior of the soldiers in the incident are incompatible with what is expected of IDF soldiers,” adding that the incident would be “thoroughly reviewed.”

On Saturday night, Zamir spoke with Central Command chief Maj. Gen. Avi Bluth and “instructed that he be presented as soon as possible with the main findings of the ongoing investigation… along with command recommendations,” the military said in a statement.

Now, the IDF said, following the investigation into the incident, Zamir has decided to end the battalion’s operational activity in the West Bank early.

The battalion’s troops would remain on reserve duty and would undergo a learning process aimed at “strengthening its professional and ethical foundations.”

With the approval of the Bluth, the battalion would return to activity at the end of that process, the military said.

The statement added that additional “command measures” against those involved in the incident would be taken, and further details about the investigation would be released in the future.

Rising settler attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank are reported daily but rarely prosecuted. In recent months, repeated attacks — often from wildcat settler outposts — have led dozens of Palestinian families to flee the northern Jordan Valley, where the incident took place.