Chief of Staff of Major General Yaniv Asor, head of the IDF's Personnel Division, admitted that the raid by military police officers on the Yemeni field base while masked was wrong.
During a confidential discussion held today (Tuesday) in the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Security Committee on the conduct of the Military Prosecution Service towards the soldiers suspected of abusing the terrorist Nuhba in the Yemeni field, the Chief of Staff said: "The position of the Chief of Staff is that the method of arrest through a raid by masked men in order to arrest the fighters in the Yemeni field was a mistake.".
He added that lessons had been learned and that such incidents would not happen again.
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During the discussion, the committee chairman, MK Yuli Edelstein, asked the Chief Military Prosecutor: "Was there a discussion with the prosecutor and the censor about the significance of the arrests before the arrest?""
The prosecutor replied in the negative.
Edelstein continued: "Was there no discussion about the implications of such arrests internationally, Israeli society, propaganda, and morale in the IDF?""
The prosecutor noted in response: "We did not consider it. We were only talking about hiding the faces of the MPI investigators so that they would not retaliate against them.".
The Chief Military Advocate, Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, did not appear for the committee hearing. The committee's chairman, MK Yuli Edelstein, said: "Unfortunately, the MAG chose or was instructed not to appear at the committee. I am announcing now that we will hold another hearing in which she will be required to appear before the committee and provide appropriate answers regarding the investigation policy. I am glad that the head of the Military Advocate General's Office quickly ruled that the army's conduct on this issue was incorrect and similar cases will not happen again.".
Meanwhile, journalist Liran Tamari from the Ynet website reported that from a conversation with several sources, it appears that the terrorist from Sde Yemen was not brought for examination at the Institute of Forensic Medicine, the body that is supposed to examine injuries of this type and base findings on a legal opinion.
""A document from a hospital doctor doesn't hold water. If you're conducting such an explosive investigation, you're expected to conduct it seriously," he wrote.
