Israel suspends military unit that assaulted CNN crew in West Bank

The Israeli military has suspended a battalion whose soldiers assaulted a CNN crew in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, in a rare case of punishment for soldier misconduct.

The army announced on Monday it was suspending the Netzah Yehuda battalion after soldiers were filmed assaulting the CNN crew last week.

Netzah Yehuda is a unit of ultra-Orthodox soldiers that has been linked to abuses of Palestinian civilians in the past, including the death of a 78-year-old Palestinian American man after his detention by the battalion’s forces in 2022.

After an outcry from the US government in that case, the Israeli military called the incident “a grave and unfortunate event”, reprimanded one officer and reassigned two others. Later that year, Israel moved the unit out of the West Bank.

In last week’s incident, a CNN team was preparing a report on settler violence in the West Bank village of Tayasir. Settler violence in the territory has surged, with at least nine Palestinians killed by Israeli settlers this year, according to UN data. Punishment of Israeli settlers for violence against Palestinians is also rare.

In the incident caught on camera, soldiers from the battalion approached the news crew, guns raised, and yelled at them. Correspondent Jeremy Diamond said a producer was put in a chokehold. The footage went viral.