Israeli police ‘branded Star of David’ onto Palestinian’s face
Israeli police officers have been accused of “branding” a Palestinian man’s face with a Star of David while violently arresting him without recording the incident on their body cameras.
The claim, issued by lawyers representing Arwa Sheikh Ali, 22, has been disputed by Israel’s police force, who claim the mark was “presumably” caused by pressure from a shoelace on an arresting officer’s boot.
A photograph taken of Mr Sheikh Ali, who was arrested on drugs charges, showed wounds on his left cheek, underneath a black eye, which seemed to resemble the Jewish religious symbol.
Mr Sheikh Ali’s lawyer claimed that he was brutally beaten by officers before being branded with the mark.
The arrest occurred in the Shuafat refugee camp in East Jerusalem, where Mr Sheikh Ali lives, as part of a drug investigation. Mr Sheikh Ali has denied all criminal charges, according to his lawyer.
‘Misleading and distorted’
Israeli police insisted that they had used reasonable force and said the suspect violently resisted arrest. They also dismissed the branding claim as “misleading and distorted”.
Officers instead suggested that a patterned shoelace on an officer’s boot was “presumably” imprinted on the suspect’s face while they were restraining him. Police issued a photograph to Israeli media outlets of the type of boot which they said may have been responsible for the triangular marks.
It came as video footage emerged of a separate incident in which Israeli border police officers shot an unarmed Palestinian in the back of the head in the occupied West Bank, where violence has worsened over the past 15 months with frequent Israeli raids, Palestinian street attacks and assaults on villages by Jewish settlers.
The Israeli border police are investigating the graphic footage, which shows the man falling flat on his face after being hit with a bullet while walking away from clashes between Palestinians and Israeli forces. It was not immediately clear if the man survived the attack.
The incident occurred as Israeli forces searched for a Palestinian who earlier this week killed two Israelis, a father and son, in an attack at a car wash in Huwara, a flashpoint town in the northern West Bank.
Also this week, an Israeli woman was killed and an Israeli man seriously injured in a shooting attack near the southern West Bank city of Hebron.
One Israeli forensics expert in Jerusalem has cast doubts on the official explanation by police for the Star of David incident, though he stressed he could not definitively disprove it.
‘Laces can’t leave this kind of imprint’
Dr Avner Rosengarten, the head of the Israel Forensic Science Institute, told local media: “It seems that the markings were created by a metallic tool or instrument … first of all, the width of the laces is not suitable. Secondly, the laces can’t leave this kind of imprint, as the edges are bleeding; it must be a straight, solid instrument.”
He added: “The laces also don’t have the pressure and force required to create this mark, because laces are flexible and soft, and remain the same no matter how much pressure one might put into a shoe.”
A judge has referred the case to police internal affairs as no “reasonable explanation” has been provided for the lack of video footage of the arrest, which involved 16 police officers.
Israeli police officers are increasingly wearing body cameras following a series of pilot schemes, but a 2021 report by the country’s state comptroller found that most do not switch them on during interactions with citizens.
‘The suspect escalated the situation’
An Israeli police spokesman said in a statement: “Upon executing a search warrant at the suspect’s residence in Shufat, law enforcement officials uncovered a significant quantity of substances believed to be drugs, well beyond the scope of personal use.
“At a certain juncture, the suspect escalated the situation by resorting to violence, physically assaulting police officers and vehemently resisting arrest,” the spokesman added.
“This necessitated the involvement of multiple officers to lawfully apprehend the individual … a notable observation during this incident was an injury on the suspect’s person that bore a resemblance to a triangular shape, presumably stemming from an article of clothing worn by one of the police officers.”
