When guard duty gets boring: Two soldiers smash windows of seven cars in a scrap yard in the village of Sinjil
13 April 2022
On 27 March 2022, at around 3:00 P.M., Athena Dar Khalil, a 60-year-old widow from the village, noticed two soldiers smashing car windows in the scrap yard her family owns. Dar Khalil shouted at the soldiers and approached them, at which point they stopped what they were doing and left the yard. Dar Khalil’s son, Jarah, arrived, followed by some neighbors. Answering their questions, the soldiers told them they had smashed the windows because children who threw stones the day before ran away to the yard. The soldiers then went to a nearby intersection and got into a military jeep that drove by. Jarah and a Hebrew-speaking neighbor told the officer in the jeep what had happened, but report he showed no interest and drove away, taking the soldiers with him.
The family called the Israeli police and were told a police car would be sent over, but no one came. About two hours and another phone call later, they were told they had to go to the police station to file a complaint. Shortly after that, Civil Administration personnel and a few soldiers came and took photos of the cars that had been damaged. Family members went to the police station to file a complaint the next day.
The conduct displayed by all officials involved - the soldiers who smashed the car windows, the officer who chose to ignore the incident, and the police that never even bothered showing up – exemplifies the utter disregard the Israeli authorities have for Palestinians and demonstrates that no one shall be held to account for harm to Palestinians or their property.
Athena Dar Khalil (60), a widow and mother of six, spoke about the incident in a testimony given to B’Tselem field researcher Iyad Hadad on 28 March 2022:
I live here with four of my sons, Jarah (35), Mujahed (30), ‘Ahed (27) and Kayed (33). We have a scrap and spare part yard across from our home, which is our source of income. There are usually twenty cars in there.
On Sunday, 27 March 2022, at 3:15 P.M., I was home, and I heard things breaking and glass shattering. I went out into the yard and saw two soldiers in there. They must have come from the intersection. Sometimes they stop there to set up a fly checkpoint and catch stone-throwers. They were on foot and armed. One of them was walking on the roof of a car, smashing windows with his gun. The other was on the ground. He was also breaking car windows.
I was worried, and I got stressed - it’s our livelihood. Those were just cars parked in the yard, hurting no one. I yelled at them, and one of them answered something in Hebrew. I walked up to them, and they immediately started backing away.
Jarah Dar Khalil (35) spoke with B’Tselem field researcher Iyad Hadad on 29 March 2022 about his attempt to file a complaint regarding the damage the soldiers caused:
I was at the neighbors’, about 50 meters away from the yard, when I heard the sounds of shattering and blows. At that moment, I also heard my mother yelling, and I walked over to the yard right away. I saw two soldiers leaving it. They looked confused. My mother was yelling at them because they were smashing car windows. In the meantime, our neighbors, ‘Ayed Ghafri (43) and his brother Yihya (27), showed up too.
We spoke to the soldiers, me in Arabic and ‘Ayed in Hebrew. Later, I understood from him that he’d asked them why they had damaged the cars, and one of them told him it was because children threw stones the day before and ran away into the yard. ‘Ayed asked them how the cars were related to the stone-throwing, and then they backed away, looking confused. They tried to conceal their faces, because we took pictures of them so we could prove their identity later and file a complaint against them.
The soldiers went to the intersection, and at the same time, a military jeep came, and they hid behind it. We talked to the officer who was in the jeep and told him what happened, but he didn’t care. He dropped off two soldiers who were in the jeep and picked up the two who had damaged the cars, and quickly drove away.
I called the municipality to file a complaint at the Palestinian DCO. My friend ‘Ayed spoke Hebrew with the officers from the Israel Police. They promised they would come to investigate. We waited for them for more than two hours, but no one came. We called them again, and then they asked us to come to the station and make the complaint there. About ten minutes later, Civil Administration personnel came, with soldiers escorting them, and took photos of the damage to the cars. We gave them the photos of the soldiers and a photo of the license plate of the jeep that picked them up. In our security camera footage, I could see the soldiers smashing car windows. I made copies of the tapes, and yesterday, I went to the Binyamin police station. I filed a complaint and gave them the tapes and the photos of the soldiers and the patrol.
They promised to take care of it, but I doubt they will. If they were serious, they’d come over right away and check the scene and the damage we suffered. We’ll have to absorb the losses. We won’t get any compensation for it, because Palestinian insurance doesn’t cover these incidents.