The great Amira Hass, a beacon in dark times.
One:
The army has declared the West Bank villages of Bil’in and Na’alin a ‘closed military area’ until August 17, it emerged Monday.
In arresting a demonstrator on Friday, police cited a military edict closing off the two villages, where weekly protests against the barrier Israel is erecting around the West Bank have often turned violent.
Two:
The response from the Israel Defense Forces spokesman came surprisingly quickly; a mere two or three hours after the query had been sent by Haaretz, the spokesman replied orally, and then in writing, that “following the reporter’s question and after receiving most of the facts, the chief [military] prosecutor, Col. Jana Modzagbrishvili has instructed the military police to look into the matter.”
The matter, according to most of the facts, was that soldiers had beaten a civilian, who was bound and blindfolded, for several hours on January 7.
Starting in the village of al-Tawani in the southern Hebron Hills, the affair continued at the military base in Sussia. The man who was beaten was Masab Rabai, aged 22.