Corporal Ghanem
Four indicted for assault on fellow Arab soldier
Failing to cover up their violent assault on a fellow Arab-Muslim trooper, four combat soldiers—two of which his superiors—are charged with aggravated assault.
Four soldiers have been indicted for assaulting a fellow Arab-Muslim combat soldier, Corporal Ghanem, after an argument over kitchen duties broke out between him and one of his attackers—his platoon sergeant.
The incident took place about 10 days ago at an IDF post near the Kerem Shalom crossing near the Gaza Strip border.
Corporal Ghanem, after the attack
According to the indictment, the commander entered soldier's room and shouted at him.
A short time later, when Ghanem left his room, an argument broke out between him and his deputy company sergeant major who called on him to approach him, telling him to "watch himself" and browbeating him with remarks such as "what, you think you're a man?"
At this stage, the military prosecution claims, the platoon sergeant arrived at the scene and together with the Dep. CSM began punching Ghanem in his head and chest.
Two other soldiers then came running in and grabbed Ghanem's hands while he was dazed, so that the four of them could continue to beat him.
The four beat Ghanem until he fell unconscious.
"Combatants in the unit who noticed the incident rushed to the scene and separated the assailants from Ghanem," the indictment states.
Ghanem was evacuated by ambulance to Soroka Medical Center in Be'er Sheva suffering from bruises including nosebleeds, swelling of the eyes and nose, chest pain during breathing and other bruises on his upper body.
The four soldiers were charged with aggravated assault.
Ghanem had difficulty integrating into a unit that operates regularly on the Gaza border.
As a Muslim Arab resident of the Galilee, he enlisted 10 months ago as a volunteer in the IDF and was integrated into a company whose fighters are from the Bedouin community.
But he says that in recent months he has been the target of harassment by soldiers in the unit over his ethnicity.
As a result, he went absent without official leave for several weeks and only returned to his unit after being persuaded to do so. Upon returning, he faced charges of desertion and was sentenced to one month in military prison.
Due to delays in his entry into prison, he was tasked with kitchen duty in the unit until the incident occurred. Soldiers in the unit tried to whitewash the case and claimed that he had bumped his head on a wall, but a Military Police investigation revealed the truth.
