WATCH: Channel 2 reveals killing, abuse, of Palestinian prisoners

Noam Sheizaf By Noam Sheizaf April 17, 2011 | Edit

This is really hard to watch: A search in prisoners cells and tents in Ktziot, a huge prison for Palestinians near the Egyptian border, ended up with the guards shooting prisoners in their quarters, killing one and injuring others.

The whole operation was unnecessary, intended to promote self-confidence and to “boost morale” among the guards. As can be see near the end of the video, some guards are clearly enjoying themselves (not everyone – others are trying to prevent the situation from getting out of hands).

(For English subtitles, press arrow, then “CC” on the lower-right corner of the player)

Channel 2 aired this story on “Uvda”, a “60 minutes”-style program which was under fire recently for being “too lefty”. Recently, Uvda was forced to compensate an IDF officer for airing a story describing how he and his soldiers shot and killed a 13 years old Palestinian girl near Gaza in 2004.

UPDATE: As part of its training, “Metzada” prisons unit, which is seen in the video above, was sent to confront unarmed protesters in Bil’in. Metzada’s members operated undercover among the demonstrators; according to reports in the Israeli media, the provocations they caused resulted in several injuries to protesters.

Noam Sheizaf

Noam Sheizaf is an independent journalist and editor. He was the founding executive director and editor-in-chief of +972 Magazine. Prior to joining +972, he worked for Tel Aviv’s Ha-ir local paper, Ynet, and the Maariv daily, where his last position was deputy editor of the weekend magazine. He is currently working on a number of documentary films.

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