The New Israel/Palestine Conflict Thread: Read the OP Before Posting

uno2tres

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Israeli forces shot a West Bank man twice, beat him, and then tied him to the hood of their vehicle as a human shield.


Israel claimed he was a suspect, and that strapping him to the vehicle was “a violation of protocol“ (no word on if violating protocol actually carries any consequences), but Al Jazeera interviewed him after he was released shortly with no explanation or questioning.

 
Well, there really is zero chance of this backfiring horribly on Israel (and Jews globally), is there? /s


I'm not sure how incredibly stupid you have to be to come up with a real conspiracy to control narrative and have laws changed in your favour to ban a chunk of free speech that you happen to dislike when quite a lot of (unjustified and racist) hate coming into your direction speaks of exactly the existence of such a conspiracy, but it has to rank quite far up there...it's like they want to whip up extra hate for the sake of seeding discourse. Holy shit.
 
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Wheels Of Confusion

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Israel claimed he was a suspect, and that strapping him to the vehicle was “a violation of protocol“ (no word on if violating protocol actually carries any consequences), but Al Jazeera interviewed him after he was released shortly with no explanation or questioning.
NPR's coverage has this little tidbit:
Since the start of the war in Gaza, more than 500 Palestinians in the West Bank have been killed by either the Israeli military or armed Israeli settlers, according to data collected by the United Nations. At least 10 Israelis — including security forces — have also been killed in the violence, according to the U.N.

In comparison, 151 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank in 2022, previously the deadliest year on record in more than a decade.


I'm not sure how incredibly stupid you have to be to come up with a real conspiracy to control narrative and have laws changed in your favour to ban a chunk of free speech that you happen to dislike when quite a lot of (unjustified and racist) hate coming into your direction speaks of exactly the existence of such a conspiracy, but it has to rank quite far up there...it's like they want to whip up extra hate for the sake of seeding discourse. Holy shit.
I doubt it's like that. This is just a standard influence campaign. Ill-advised and cynical, but then again many of them are anyways.
 

Imbrium

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Israeli forces shot a West Bank man twice, beat him, and then tied him to the hood of their vehicle as a human shield.


Israel claimed he was a suspect, and that strapping him to the vehicle was “a violation of protocol“ (no word on if violating protocol actually carries any consequences), but Al Jazeera interviewed him after he was released shortly with no explanation or questioning.

Don't worry, Israel said they will investigate the incident, and you know how well that goes.:mad:
 
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blindbear

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Some people buy into their own version of righteousness. Once you have demonized others enough, you can justify anything. We still have these sort of xenophobic everywhere. There are just usually enough push back to ensure the worst do not happen.

What happen to Palestinians is not new. It has been slow rolling for awhile now. Muslim friends have mentioned such since the early 2000s (per 9/11).
 

trapine

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Where will they stop? Surely after colonising the West-Bank, by whatever horrifying method they pick, some other neighbour will be justifiably angry enough about it to scare Israel into invading them.

Netanyahu will clearly be in deep trouble as soon as the war is over. Perhaps he and his cronies have decided that if the war is never over, there will never be trouble for them.
 

Happysin

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Where will they stop? Surely after colonising the West-Bank, by whatever horrifying method they pick, some other neighbour will be justifiably angry enough about it to scare Israel into invading them.

Netanyahu will clearly be in deep trouble as soon as the war is over. Perhaps he and his cronies have decided that if the war is never over, there will never be trouble for them.
Is anyone over in Israel worried about what a multi-front war will look like? If US intelligence reports are to be believed, Iran has been actively smuggling arms to the West Bank for exactly this kind of annexation scenario. They know it will wreak havoc in the region. Then the escalating rhetoric (and missile strikes) with Hezbollah basically turns this into a three-front war. Or a lot more, considering the border lines of the West Bank and Israel.
 

AbidingArs

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Haaretz covered a confrontation in Beit She'an between Arabs and Jews. This town has had an Arab community for about 30 years, mostly families who cooperated with the Israeli security forces in the West Bank and needed refuge after doing so (one of these was Abu Ali, whose father was shot by Palestinians over this cooperation and paralyzed in 1992). Longtime Jewish residents say that the Arabs were good neighbors.

Based on the article and some research, it seems that a group of Religious Zionists have moved into the town. Referred to as Garin Torani, these groups have been accused of intimidating Arabs. In Lod, they were accused of settling in the Arab-Israeli communities for the explicit purpose of "Strengthening the city's Jewish-Israeli identity". According to Arab residents of Beit She'an, a young man from this group mocked young Arab women, apparently calling them "terrorists". Somewhere in this, the verbal violence went physical and a post to a far-right Telegram group brought armed settlers from the West Bank:
Armed settlers called as backup made their way from the West Bank directly to Beit She'an, encouraged by a far-right Telegram group that wrote, "The Arab enemy is raising its head in our town here." A group member responded, "While our soldiers are fighting in Gaza and the north, the Arabs in Beit She'an are attacking our women and young men." The group urged people to go there. "We will show the enemy who's in charge of the Land of Israel in general and the town of Beit She'an in particular," wrote a member.
The mayor, who acknowledged his ties to the Garin Torani, wrote on social media that the police and authorities would handle the incident. The post received many replies that called for a demonstration in the Arab neighborhood to them "who's in charge". Haaretz covered this demonstration:
At the time scheduled for the demonstration to begin, only the Beit She'an police station's commander, Rona Morad, and three officers were present. In footage obtained by Haaretz, about 200 right-wing extremists are seen outside the home of an Arab family and yelling, "Mohammed is dead," and "May your village burn." The attackers quickly begin throwing stones at several apartments belonging to the neighborhood's Arab residents.

"I called the station commander, and she told me, 'Don't worry, everything will be all right. We have full control," says resident Moayad Abu Ali, 55. "She told me, 'Just make sure that your side doesn't get out of control. Stay inside.'" Abu Ali says he asked her to make sure no one got close to his home and that Morad assured him there was nothing to worry about. Another Arab resident said, "The gate to my house was blocked. The police lost control."

Additional footage shows a group of young Jewish men, including armed settlers, going to a building in which Arabs lived. "They shouted, 'You'll die today' at me," one Arab woman said in a call to the police. "I'm scared they'll throw something at the window." A neighbor said, "We had no choice but to defend ourselves."

A few Arabs living in the building began throwing large stones and objects in response to the attack. Police officers with masks on were filmed breaking into Abu Ali's home and arresting someone. One police officer is seen raising a chair and threatening to throw it at the person filming him. "Throw down the phone," he yells at her, and she obeys.

The riots ended after four hours with 12 arrests made, mostly Arab residents. "What do we have to do with these 'hilltop youths'?" asked Abu Ali, referring to right-wing extremist settlers. "The police broke into our home and went on a rampage because the hilltop youths pressured them. These people aren't from Beit She'an at all."
One Arab resident summed up their plight in the aftermath:
"These families are caught between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, right-wing extremists harm us, and on the other, we contribute to the country, so we're not accepted in the Arab villages. We can't leave the town."
 
Where will they stop? Surely after colonising the West-Bank, by whatever horrifying method they pick, some other neighbour will be justifiably angry enough about it to scare Israel into invading them.

Netanyahu will clearly be in deep trouble as soon as the war is over. Perhaps he and his cronies have decided that if the war is never over, there will never be trouble for them.
We already know their next target. Netanyahu says that they next need to deal with Hezbollah, so expect war with Lebanon shortly, as Israel says the intensive phase of the war in Gaza is now over. Most troubling is that the US has told Israel that they will step up to defend the IDF if they end up in a war with Hezbollah. Why the hell should we get involved in a war that Israel starts and perhaps could lose? American lives are going to be lost if that happens, and that is going to be too much even for supporters of Israel in Congress.
 

Wheels Of Confusion

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Israel's Supreme Court ruled that Haredi men shouldn't be exempt from service and ordered the military to begin drafting them.
As we've seen, the few who did choose to enlist face backlash in their insular communities akin to shunning. On the other hand, the original purpose of the exemption was to protect a very small number of religious scholars and Haredem now make up about a quarter of draft-age males so they're not exactly in danger of extinction.
 

Shavano

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We already know their next target. Netanyahu says that they next need to deal with Hezbollah, so expect war with Lebanon shortly, as Israel says the intensive phase of the war in Gaza is now over. Most troubling is that the US has told Israel that they will step up to defend the IDF if they end up in a war with Hezbollah. Why the hell should we get involved in a war that Israel starts and perhaps could lose? American lives are going to be lost if that happens, and that is going to be too much even for supporters of Israel in Congress.
The US also shouldn't provide weapons to enable that war. Their declaring intent ought to have already stopped the flow of "defensive" weapons.
 

Shavano

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Israel's Supreme Court ruled that Haredi men shouldn't be exempt from service and ordered the military to begin drafting them.
As we've seen, the few who did choose to enlist face backlash in their insular communities akin to shunning. On the other hand, the original purpose of the exemption was to protect a very small number of religious scholars and Haredem now make up about a quarter of draft-age males so they're not exactly in danger of extinction.
It's a nitpick but they ruled the ARE not exempt. And the expansion of their ranks was highly predictable, just based on their being able to evade a responsibility that they would otherwise have to fulfil. People are like that.
 

AbidingArs

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Israel's Supreme Court ruled that Haredi men shouldn't be exempt from service and ordered the military to begin drafting them.
As we've seen, the few who did choose to enlist face backlash in their insular communities akin to shunning. On the other hand, the original purpose of the exemption was to protect a very small number of religious scholars and Haredem now make up about a quarter of draft-age males so they're not exactly in danger of extinction.
Netanyahu's coalition is still trying to pass a bill to exempt the Haredi from the draft - their goal is to pass it by July 28 before the Knesset recess. I am not sure if this is a complete exemption or just to enlist 3000 (which is the Attorney General's order). Seems like the UTJ and Shas parties are going to stay in the coalition until then at least. I'm not sure what happens if it passes - I assume it would just go through another round of court rulings to be held unconstitutional (assuming it is a complete exemption), but I do not really understand the system in Israel. And taking that extra time might be all that is needed.

Also interesting, since Netanyahu's coalition just went through some infighting over Shas' requested bill to have the federal government takeover appointing municipal rabbis (IIRC, it would have given Shas 600 jobs to assign). A mix of Likud and Ben-Gvir's Otzma Yehudit party opposed the measure, preventing its passage. I saw an opinion article that argued this was Shas' attempt to get everything they could out of the coalition before it falls.

It does not sound like the draft exemption will pass:
The bill is currently being discussed in the Foreign Affairs and Security Committee of the Knesset, chaired by MK Yuli Edelstein, which worries some coalition leaders. These concerns increased after Edelstein's statement on Tuesday that the law will only pass 'with consensus' from opposition parties.

In a previous discussion in the committee, Edelstein said that "It is clear to the members of the committee that the question of conscription and exemption causes a rift in the people," adding that his "task is not to widen the rift but to reduce it."
 

AbidingArs

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Israel's supreme court is hearing a petition on Israeli prisons reducing food rations by an extreme amount.
The petition was filed following the dozens of testimonies from security prisoners and detainees who are not connected with Hamas that the Prison Service has significantly reduced their food rations, to the point of starvation, causing them to shed dozens of kilograms. Some of the testimonies are from people who were arrested but have not been tried, and also from administrative detainees.
The Prison Service, which is overseen by National Security Minister Ben-Gvir, did not keep this reduction a secret but contends that it still provides legal amounts and has actually increased recently (possibly in response to the legal petition). There are doubts that the amount of food distributed is being accurately reported by them however:
The Prison Service legal advisor, Eran Nahon, confirmed at the Israel Bar Association convention last month that security prisoners' food rations were being drastically reduced. "They will receive the absolute minimum required by law and by the conventions to which Israel is committed," Nahon said. "Not a gram more. This is a security purpose, but I don't rule out that it could be policy. Policy is not a dirty word." Nahon said that the National Security Minister's job is to outline policy, as long as it adheres to the conditions of the law. "I don't see a problem here," Nahon said. "Why give more? In the past, there were celebrations and feasts. The Prison Service has undergone a revolution."
This follows Ben-Gvir's earlier boasting after October 7th:
At the start of the war, the then-Prison Commissioner Katy Perry ordered to close the canteens for the security prisoners, and prohibited them from cooking independently in their prison wards. Ben-Gvir boasted of having ordered that no meat be distributed to prisoners, thereby significantly reducing the amount of food given to them.
Ben-Gvir also complained that Attorney General Baharav-Miar and the prosecutors office did not include his argument that this was a deterrent measure.
Minutes before the start of the hearing, Ben-Gvir sent a personal letter to the petitioners, noting that the attorney general and the High Court department refused to include in the state's official response his position that the reduction of food given to prisoners was meant for deterrent purposes. "There is no starvation, but my policy does call for reducing conditions, including food and calories," the minister wrote.

Ben-Gvir also wrote that "the current menu contains 200 calories more than the caloric average, and I have instructed the Prison Service to present a new menu within 15 days without any caloric surplus. Based on what I' have been told by certified intelligence experts, the changes in incarceration conditions, including the changes in food, are directly affecting deterrence, with potential assailants abstaining from committing terrorist actions so as not to be put in "the occupation's prisons."
 

Wheels Of Confusion

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Speaking of cruel deprivations:
Hospitals, bakeries, ambulances and telecommunications systems are all running on limited fuel due to unstable supplies entering Gaza.

The amount of medical aid crossing into Gaza is also insufficient, according to the World Health Organization.

A surgeon in Gaza City with Project Hope, Dr. Osama Hamed, said in a statement that he treated a 13-year-old boy last week with a vascular and ureteral injury, but the hospital lacked the sutures needed to operate. A staffer had to physically run to a nearby hospital to get the last box they had, he says.

Dr. Hamed says doctors are also seeing malnourished children daily in Gaza City. NPR has previously reported on malnourished children dying in central Gaza as the health-care system collapses.

“We see patients who are just skin and bones, as a sign of severe malnutrition,” he observed. “Patients have reported not eating any protein for several months, making it impossible for their bodies to recover from infections and injuries.”

Additionally, there isn’t enough drinking water in Gaza. “The other day, a young girl was admitted to the operating room and begged me for water,” he says.
Israel still denies that they're the ones blocking aid.
 

Happysin

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It's a bit of black humor, but I will note they can't really use the scapegoat* everyone else uses, because Israel can't blame "the Jews" when things (like access to aid) go wrong.

This is not an endorsement of anything, just a bitter observation of what happens when the abused becomes the abuser.

*And yes, I get the double irony, considering the origins of the term.
 
It's a bit of black humor, but I will note they can't really use the scapegoat* everyone else uses, because Israel can't blame "the Jews" when things (like access to aid) go wrong.

This is not an endorsement of anything, just a bitter observation of what happens when the abused becomes the abuser.

*And yes, I get the double irony, considering the origins of the term.
Keep in mind that in the recent past they have already managed to cast Jews who are against the current treatment of minorities in Israel as "antisemites". It is merely a small step to start using them as full-on scapegoats with the same arguments as actual, real antisemites.
 
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It's a bit of black humor, but I will note they can't really use the scapegoat* everyone else uses, because Israel can't blame "the Jews" when things (like access to aid) go wrong.

This is not an endorsement of anything, just a bitter observation of what happens when the abused becomes the abuser.

*And yes, I get the double irony, considering the origins of the term.

They can and will. They'll just be the wrong sort of Jews.

There's already a criticism of Israel that it's fundamentally a white settler project, because Mizrahim are underrepresented in government and positions of social power.

(It'll be the LGBT who get it first though, Smotrich is super-homophobic and proud of it).
 

AbidingArs

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An Israeli magistrate court has ordered the National Security Ministry to turn over information on the distribution of gun licenses by Ben-Gvir's employees to the Israel Police's National Fraud Investigation Unit. Four employees are suspected of issuing thousands of licenses illegally. Some police officials said that this investigation, which was authorized by Attorney General Baharav-Miara in March, was being delayed out of concern that it would implicate Ben-Gvir.
The sources said that people in the unit feared that looking into suspicions against the minister could ultimately hurt the unit's investigators and their commanders.

"They're just afraid to touch it," one police official said at the time about the fraud unit investigators. "They're doing all they can to avoid investigating, because they're afraid that things will reach Ben-Gvir himself. This is clearly a criminal case and those involved should have been interrogated long ago," he added.
 

AbidingArs

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According to Haaretz, the US has warned Israel that even a limited ground invasion of South Lebanon would likely spark full scale war with Hezbollah and Iran. It seems that this is a response to the Israelis proposing to invade to push Hezbollah back several kilometers from the border, apparently in the belief that telling Lebanon that they are limiting this to a small area near the border will convince Lebanon not to react as if it were a full scale invasion.
"Even if Israel swears that it only wants to push Hezbollah away from the border, and doesn't want to destroy Beirut, the other side probably won't believe it," explained one of the American officials who participated in the talks. "There's a higher chance that this kind of attempt for a limited operation, very quickly leads to widespread destruction in both countries."
In the past 24 hours, Germany, Holland and Canada have called on their citizens to leave Lebanon due to the risk of war. The US has recommended its citizens to avoid flights to Lebanon and keep away from the southern region of the country. Since Hezbollah seems intent on continuing the conflict as long as the Gaza war continues and Israel seems intent on continuing the fighting in Gaza, pessimism has spread about avoiding war. The fighting has slowed between Lebanon and Israel but could escalate rapidly.
 
It sounds like Israel is really itching for war with Lebanon.


Of course, the US saying it will aid Israel in the event of a war with Lebanon is also helpful to them.
 
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AbidingArs

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The Times of Israel is reporting that Smotrich is going to unfreeze the last three months of tax funds for the Palestinian Authority and extend the waiver that allows Israeli banks to work with Palestinian banks for four months. Money for the Palestinian Authorities' services and employees in Gaza will not be transferred, which is roughly 40% of the total, as well as the deductions for payments made to the families of terrorists. As a result, their employees will only receive half of their salaries. The US is not happy that these funds and the indemnity will likely be an issue again in a few months and used for similar leverage.

In exchange, the security cabinet approved legalizing five West Bank outposts, advancing plans for thousands of new settlement homes there, and the sanctions he had proposed to the Palestinian Authority leadership for their support of the International Criminal Court's and International Court of Justice's cases against Israel. These sanctions target the leadership out of concern for the financial stability of the Palestinian Authority and cancel various benefits, exit visas, and so on. US and Israeli security officials fear that the collapse of the Palestinian Authority would lead to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad cells in the West Bank to open a new front.

Most controversial in the territorial transfers is a nature reserve in the Judean desert that right-wing groups claim the Palestinians have been building in without restriction, damaging the environment and heritage sites. This area is in Area B of the West Bank, under civilian control by the Palestinian Authority, so this transfer would violate the Oslo Accords. On the other hand, the hold placed on the Palestinian tax revenue also violates that agreement.
 
I suspect that, even if Israel has the technological advantage, Israel would lose a war against all of their neighbours at once (due to lack of troops1). Which this is shaping up to.

1 I guess the USA as an ally could send troops in support, but that would be a very bad idea(TM) for both internal and external reasons: 1) chance of a Vietnam war style revolt, 2) completely blowing its international standing.
 

Ananke

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I suspect that, even if Israel has the technological advantage, Israel would lose a war against all of their neighbours at once (due to lack of troops1). Which this is shaping up to.
If Israel does manage to get itself into a many-front war that genuinely is existential, American assistance would be less unthinkable, I believe.

It would be an incredibly risky strategy for the Israeli leadership to pursue - but to the extent that there exist zealots who genuinely believe they can only be safe and prosperous by destroying their enemies rather than making peace with them, it’s not incomprehensible.
 

AbidingArs

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Israeli courts have ordered police to return a full-sized model tank (made of Styrofoam) and the truck used to transport it to the Kippur '73 Fighters anti-government protest group. This tank had been a feature in many anti-government rallies and was seized last week on the grounds that it was a safety risk as "the tank spread fear among the public". In court, the police threw out every possible rationale for the seizure, as noted by the judge who ordered its return:
Judge Zeller dismissed police arguments, saying they "made almost every possible argument to convince [the court] that the applicants' request should not be accepted, from claiming that the tank spread fear among the residents, to claims of damage to land and archeological sites, to arguments about the tank's safety and claims of harassment of residents. Not to mention the outright confiscation of the truck for several days because of an alleged minor defect."

The judge added that the model tank was present at demonstrations in major cities throughout the past year, and that police were seen next to it, seemingly unconcerned of the "danger" and "fear" that it caused.

"The [protesters'] counsel argued that, in some of these demonstrations, police officers even helped the group move the tank. Based on a review of the photographs filed, I believe that there are real grounds for assuming that that was the case. Why precisely did Caesarea become the place where it was considered 'the father of all sins'?" wrote Zeller.
The judge did order that no more than five people are permitted to be on the tank at a time.
 

AbidingArs

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Wheels Of Confusion

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Aid workers in Gaza face the same challenges as everybody else; lack of food, clean water, medicine, and physical security.
Israel is still blaming the lack of aid on the UN (primarily).
The US's floating pier is underwhelming even the lowered expectations realists had, will be take out due to weather again shortly, and may not be back.
 

AbidingArs

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Aid workers in Gaza face the same challenges as everybody else; lack of food, clean water, medicine, and physical security.
Israel is still blaming the lack of aid on the UN (primarily).
The US's floating pier is underwhelming even the lowered expectations realists had, will be take out due to weather again shortly, and may not be back.
The Times of Israel had a bit more detail on the pier. Sounds like this is continued fallout from the aid agencies halting distribution efforts around the pier as they assess the security concerns from the use of the area as a landing zone during the Israeli hostage rescue. The storage areas near the pier are quite full, so even if the pier is restored, there is little for it to do until the accumulated aid is distributed (if that ever happens).
 
Israeli forces shot a West Bank man twice, beat him, and then tied him to the hood of their vehicle as a human shield.


Israel claimed he was a suspect, and that strapping him to the vehicle was “a violation of protocol“ (no word on if violating protocol actually carries any consequences), but Al Jazeera interviewed him after he was released shortly with no explanation or questioning.

Unfortunately this was not an isolated incident.
The BBC has found two more cases of the IDF shooting men in the West Bank, stripping and beating them, and tying them to vehicle hoods.
 

Shavano

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I'd be disappointed at the IDF's use of terrorist tactics if I were physically able to be more disappointed in their lack of humane decency.

From the beginning of this war, they've shown stunning disregard for military discipline, the laws of war, and potential legal consequences of illegal behavior.
Unfortunately this was not an isolated incident.
The BBC has found two more cases of the IDF shooting men in the West Bank, stripping and beating them, and tying them to vehicle hoods.