Israeli military suspends battalion involved in assaulting, detaining CNN crew in West Bank

The Israeli military’s top general suspended all operational activities of a reserve battalion involved in the detention and assault of a CNN team in the West Bank last week, the Israeli military said Monday.

The reserve battalion, which is comprised of hundreds of reservists who served in the ultra-Orthodox Netzah Yehuda battalion, will be immediately withdrawn from the West Bank and reassigned to training until further notice, an Israeli military official said.

The sweeping disciplinary action by Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, the Israeli military chief of staff, appears to be unprecedented in speed and scope, coming about 48 hours after CNN’s report about the incident first aired. It also appeared to reflect growing concerns inside the Israeli security establishment about spiraling Israeli settler violence in the West Bank.

The suspension follows an incident Thursday in the Palestinian village of Tayasir, where CNN’s Jeremy Diamond and his team were covering the aftermath of a violent assault by settlers who established an illegal outpost in the village. The soldiers detained the team, after one of the soldiers placed CNN photojournalist Cyril Theophilos in a chokehold, bringing him to ground and damaging his camera.

The assault of Theophilos will be investigated by Israel’s military police, a military official said.

The incident represented a “serious ethical and professional failure,” the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement on Monday, adding that the “standards of conduct and discipline demonstrated in the incident do not align with IDF values.”

“Weapons are to be used solely for the purpose of carrying out the mission, and never for revenge. We will not accept such incidents within the ranks of the IDF,” Zamir said in the statement.

The military said the battalion will undergo training “aimed at reinforcing its professional and ethical foundations” and that the Commander of Central Command would decide when they could resume operational activity.

Additional steps will be taken against individual soldiers involved in the incident, the military official had said earlier

The suspended battalion is the reserve component of Netzah Yehuda, an infantry battalion originally established to integrate ultra-Orthodox Jews into the IDF while maintaining religious accommodations such as gender segregation and strict observance. In recent years, however, the battalion – primarily stationed in the West Bank – has attracted members of radical right-wing settler groups such as the “Hilltop Youth.”

US President Joe Biden’s administration considered sanctioning Netzah Yehuda in 2024 over alleged gross human rights violations against Palestinians, citing reports of killings, beatings and other abuses. The plan was dropped after Israel provided information indicating that the IDF had taken corrective actions.

During the CNN team’s detention, several of the soldiers said on camera that they believed the entire West Bank belongs to Jews and that they were avenging the alleged killing of an Israeli settler days earlier. One soldier named Meir admitted the outpost in Tayasir was illegal, but said it would “slowly, slowly” be legalized with his help.

Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir slammed the battalion’s suspension, calling it a “grave mistake that harms our fighters and Israel’s deterrence capability.”

CNN’s report generated significant attention in Israeli media and was covered across all major Israeli news outlets, putting a rare spotlight on settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank and the Israeli military’s role in it.

Yair Golan, leader of the Democrats party, and former deputy chief of staff of the IDF called on Zamir to “clearly state to his subordinates below and the government above: There is no ‘permitted’ terror. Terror is terror. And terror is dealt with an iron fist.”

The Israeli Journalists’ Union demanded that military authorities fully prosecute the soldiers who violently assaulted the crew.

The disciplinary action came a day after Israeli military spokesman Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani publicly apologized to CNN for the incident and vowed a swift investigation. (CNN)