Soldiers beat Knesset member at Hebron demonstration

Date: 28 / 03 / 2009  Time:  13:32
Hebron – Ma’an –

A Palestinian member of the so-called Israeli parliament (Knesset in Hebrew) was beaten by the Israeli occupation terrorist soldiers in the West Bank city of Hebron on Saturday, witnesses said.

The Hadash Party-affiliated Knesset member, Muhammed Baraka, said soldiers attacked him during a demonstration in the area's Old City, pushing him violently and spraying him and the crowd with teargas and stun grenades.

Witnesses said that upon word that the soldiers were ordering the crowd to leave, Baraka insisted that the only people able to make such a request were the Palestinian owners, at which point soldiers beat him.

A spokesperson for the Israeli military, however, denied the claims, saying that videotaped evidence shows that the parliament member was not attacked. But Israel did not immediately make the supposed video available for the press.

Two other activists were injured at what participants called a peaceful anti-settlement rally in the southern West Bank city. It was held at an illegal Israeli settlement in the heart of the city, where clashes between settlers, Palestinians and soldiers often break out.

Demonstrators chanted slogans against the settlements in Hebron and demanded that Israeli authorities open roads that have been deemed off-limits for the Palestinian residents of the city, including Ash-Shuhada Street, which Palestinians have not been permitted to use since 2002.

The rally was organized by a group of young Palestinians, calling itself "Youth Against the Settlement," but the rally was obstructed by Israeli soldiers near a building within the Hebron municipality and near the entrance to the Old City. Witnesses said soldiers beat demonstrators with batons and the butts of rifles, as well as fired teargas canisters to disperse the crowds.

An Israeli spokesperson said that "riot-control measures" were introduced when members of the crowd refused to disperse upon the declaration that the area was a "closed military zone," a label Israel often applies as justification to dispel crowds in the West Bank, at times violently.

The two injured activists were identified as Ishaq Shahin, who was knocked unconscious, and Musa Abu Hashhash, a field researcher for the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem, who was hurt by shrapnel injuries from one of the teargas canisters. They were both taken to A'lyah Hospital in Hebron for treatment.

Last month, Israeli police opened an investigation into allegations that MK Baraka had assaulted a police officer at a separate rally in the central West Bank village of Bil'in, where weekly anti-wall demonstrations are held.