Jerusalem. The Israeli military has suspended a battalion whose soldiers assaulted a CNN crew in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, in a rare instance of disciplinary action over troop misconduct.

The army said Monday it had suspended the Netzah Yehuda battalion after soldiers were filmed assaulting the CNN crew last week.

Netzah Yehuda, a unit composed largely of ultra-Orthodox soldiers, has previously been linked to abuses against Palestinian civilians, including the death of a 78-year-old Palestinian American man following his detention by the battalion 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, the unit was moved 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. Violence by Israeli settlers has surged, with at least nine Palestinians killed this year, according to UN data. Punishment of settlers for attacks on Palestinians remains rare.

Video footage shows soldiers from the battalion approaching the crew with guns raised and shouting at them. Correspondent Jeremy Diamond said a producer was placed in a chokehold. The footage quickly went viral.

In a report on CNN’s website, Diamond said the soldiers detained the crew, along with Palestinian residents, for about two hours while expressing views aligned with settler ideology, including claims that all of the West Bank belongs to Israel and referring to Palestinians as terrorists.

On Monday, the military said Netzah Yehuda was suspended from its current deployment and would resume service after undergoing “a process aimed at reinforcing its professional and ethical foundations.”

Rabbi Shaul Abdiel, who works with the unit, criticized the punishment as “too fast and too collective” in a radio interview.

Human rights groups have long argued that Israel rarely holds soldiers accountable for abuses against Palestinians. The cases involving the Palestinian American man and the CNN crew have drawn heightened attention because they involve US citizens and a major international news organization.

Weeks before the CNN incident, Israeli authorities said they had opened an investigation into the killing of four Palestinians, including two children — one of them blind — by Israeli forces during a patrol in the nearby West Bank town of Tammun.

Authorities have yet to announce any disciplinary measures in that case, and Israeli media reports say the officers involved have not been questioned.

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