Copyright: Israelsoldier at en.wikipedia [Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons
A commanding officer and four soldiers belonging to a unit of the Netzah Yehuda (Eternal Judea) combat battalion were arrested earlier today during an operation to capture a number of Arabs suspected of assisting the recently captured terrorist who killed two Israeli soldiers of the same battalion. The officer and soldiers are suspected of beating the Arabs after they were captured and bound in a way that posed no further threat to the Israeli troops. Israeli military police that affected the arrests suspects that the beatings were in revenge for the slaying of two soldiers from the Netzah Yehuda battalion by Palestinian Arabs late last year.
Most of those who serve in the Netzah Yehuda battalion are religious Jews, many of whom reside in Samaria and Judea, where they experience Arab violence from an early age. This arrest comes on the heels of arrests made by the Israeli General Security Service, the Shin Beit of a number of yeshiva students from the northern Samaria settlement of Rehelim and is certain to pour additional fuel on the ongoing feud between the extreme elements in the Jewish settler movement and Israeli security and law enforcement.
