Border Police officer Gal Segev faced charges in a lawsuit on Monday for damages caused by his alleged violent attack on a protester three years ago. The victim, David Hashash, says Segev is the officer who kicked and beat him until he lost consciousness during a protest against the destruction of Jewish homes in Amona in 2005.
The use of excessive force by police at Amona prompted human rights groups and Knesset members to sharply censure the police behavior. The violence was documented in the video probe below.
Warning: graphic footage. Not recommended for children
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Knesset Member Aryeh Eldad, former head of IDF military Corps, had his arm broken by police in Amona. Regarding the police, he said, "They were there in order to beat skulls and cut faces… to insult, to speak in language that I don't want to use - against young religious girls. They beat members of Knesset."
Former advisor to Minister of Police Col. (res.) Moshe Givati notes that the government "deliberately didn't bring policewomen. The policemen themselves had to evacuate the girls in a brutal way. During the confrontation, policemen put their hands into the skirts of the girls and held them in their very private places and told them, 'You whore. We are going to rape you because you don't want to evacuate this house.'"
The policeman currently facing charges, Segev, was the commander of a group of officers responsible for removing protesters from house number eight, Hashash explained in his suit. According to the victim, Segev initially called on other policemen to refrain from using violence, but within minutes, he was beating non-violent protesters along with his fellow officers.
When Hashash went to help a hurt friend, a number of officers attacked him, he said, including Segev, who kicked him in the back and struck him in the head repeatedly with a baton. The blows caused him to lose consciousness twice, he claimed.
Hashash described a man of Segev's appearance as the officer who beat him in past meetings with police investigators, but police refused to open an investigation, and would not allow him to look through photographs of officers in order to make a positive identification. Yesha Human Rights Groups report that approximately half of the complaints against violent officers from Amona have been closed due to “inability to identify the offender,” often due to faulty investigative work.
Hashash is asking for
