Human rights advocates reacted angrily Sunday to a leaked report suggesting that no Israeli soldiers are likely to be charged in connection with the fatal detention of an elderly Palestinian-American man by occupation forces in a West Bank town earlier this month.<\/p>\n
“This is a policy: Israel does not prosecute those responsible for harming Palestinians, thus making their lives miserable,” the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem tweeted<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Washington Post, <\/em>citing<\/a> a Hebrew-language report<\/a> on the Israeli news site Ynet<\/em>, said Sunday that a leaked summary of an Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) probe into the death of Omar Assad confirmed that the 78-year-old former Milwaukee grocer was dragged from his vehicle, blindfolded, gagged, and handcuffed before falling silent while being detained at a construction site in Jiljilya on January 12.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The report summary said that IDF soldiers did not provide medical assistance to Assad, despite the presence of an army medic.<\/p>\n Assad suffered from heart problems. Witnesses said that by the time the Israeli troops left Jiljilya after detaining him for an hour, his face was ashen blue from a lack of oxygen. Islam Abu Zaher, a physician who tried to resuscitate Assad almost immediately after the troops left, said he died from an apparent heart attack.<\/p>\n The report suggested that none of the IDF soldiers involved “would be indicted, nor have they been suspended.” <\/p>\n An IDF spokesperson, Lt. Col. Amnon Shefler, said<\/a> last week that troops apprehended Assad “after he resisted a check, a routine check, where he was questioned. And because of his lack of cooperation and his behavior, that is why they stopped him.”<\/p>\n The IDF said Sunday that “it should be clarified that no decisions have yet been made regarding the investigation case.”<\/p>\n B’Tselem tweeted<\/a>, “Maybe this time, when it comes to its citizen, the United States for a change will do something in response to the crimes committed by its good friend.”<\/p>\n Palestinian-American writer and activist Susan Abulhawa said<\/a> Sunday that “Omar Assad was an American citizen. We need the Department of Justice to convene a grand jury to indict and extradite his killers, because no non-Jew can get justice in Israel.”<\/p>\n The Post<\/em> says the U.S. State Department has asked Israel to conduct a “thorough investigation” of Assad’s death.<\/p>\n After Rachel Corrie, an American activist volunteering with the International Solidarity Movement, was crushed to death <\/a>by an IDF armored bulldozer while defending Palestinian homes in occupied Gaza in 2003, Dan Shapiro, the US ambassador at the time, expressed his dissatisfaction<\/a> with Israel’s investigation of the incident. Attempts by Corrie’s family to hold Israel accountable for the woman’s death ultimately proved futile<\/a>.<\/p>\n Brett Wilkins is is staff writer for Common Dreams<\/a>. Based in San Francisco, his work covers issues of social justice, human rights and war and peace. This originally appeared at CommonDreams<\/a> and is reprinted with the author’s permission.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Human rights advocates reacted angrily Sunday to a leaked report suggesting that no Israeli soldiers are likely to be charged in connection with the fatal detention of an elderly Palestinian-American man by occupation forces in a West Bank town earlier this month. “This is a policy: Israel does not prosecute those responsible for harming Palestinians, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":372,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-38775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":"\"This is a policy: Israel does not prosecute those responsible for harming Palestinians, thus making their lives miserable,\" said the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem."},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/372"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38775"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38775\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38777,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38775\/revisions\/38777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38775"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=38775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}