Border police swooped down on the Eish Kodesh outpost late Monday night and arrested five men who were released only hours later concerning an incident several weeks ago in which a Palestinian Authority Arab infiltrator was wounded.
The Honenu legal defense organization called the arrest a “political provocation by the police,” who lawyers said knew ahead of time the outcome of the investigation that lasted several hours at the Maaleh Adumim police station.
“There is no reason in the world to arrest adults in front of their little children in the middle of the night,” said a Honenu lawyer.
Police searched their homes and confiscated their weapons during the raid, which was connected with a recent infiltration at Eish Kodesh by neighboring Arab villagers, one of whom said he was hit by a bullet from an M-16 rifle.
All five men who were arrested were members of the first response team, and one of them is an IDF solider.
The Arab infiltrators had reached a vineyard on the hilltop when IDF reinforcements arrived with riot gear but apparently without rifles. At the soldiers’ request, one of the Eish Kodesh team fired twice in the air, according to army orders. Border Police then arrived at the scene and took command, and one of them apparently injuring an Arab while distancing the infiltrators from the community.