NCS Journalist Put in Chokehold, Brought to Ground by Israeli Soldier as News Crew Is Detained in West Bank

NEED TO KNOW

• Israeli troopers pointed rifles at three NCS journalists, put one in a chokehold and broke digital camera gear whereas defending illegally occupied West Bank settlements

• “Twelve hours after Israeli settlers brutally attacked several Palestinians and established a new illegal outpost in their village, the Israeli military stepped in,” the NCS crew wrote. “But instead of detaining settlers or dismantling the illegal outpost, the soldiers targeted the Palestinian residents of Tayasir and a NCS team covering the incursion”

• The Israeli battalion involved in the incident has long been accused of abuses and human rights violations against Palestinians, and was punished in 2022 for the killing of a 78-year-old U.S. citizen

Israeli soldiers pointed rifles at three NCS journalists, put one in a chokehold and broke camera equipment as they protected illegally occupied West Bank settlements, which is outlawed by Israeli and international law.

As the journalists were detained for two hours, the soldiers discussed aiding the illegal outposts and framed their role in the occupied Palestinian territory as one to facilitate revenge on the population and legitimize the Israeli settlements.

The incident drew international condemnation and resulted in Israel taking the rare step of suspending the battalion of ultra-Orthodox reservists and withdrawing them from the West Bank for additional training. One soldier was dismissed from military service, the Israeli military told NCS.

Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, the highest-ranking officer in the Israel Defense Forces, called the treatment of the NCS journalists a “grave ethical incident.” But Israel’s nationwide safety minister Itamar Ben Gvir decried the punishments as a “grave mistake that harms our fighters and Israel’s deterrence functionality.”

“This is a grave ethical incident that is out of line with IDF norms and values,” Zamir mentioned in an announcement. “We all swore the soldier’s oath upon enlistment — 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.”

NCS’s Jeremy Diamond, Abeer Salman and Cyril Theophilos recounted their expertise being detained in an article printed on Friday, March 27.

“Twelve hours after Israeli settlers brutally attacked several Palestinians and established a new illegal outpost in their village, the Israeli military stepped in,” they wrote. “But instead of detaining settlers or dismantling the illegal outpost, the soldiers targeted the Palestinian residents of Tayasir and a NCS team covering the incursion.”

In a video printed by NCS, troopers are seen pointing their rifles at Palestinians and the journalists. One of the troopers places Theophilos, a photojournalist, in a chokehold, “bringing him to the ground and damaging his camera.” Diamond implores them to cease and a soldier then slaps his telephone out of his hand.

“We’re seeing the soldiers treat the Palestinians in the area as the threat, when really what started this problem was the settlers who came in the middle of the night and took over land that is not theirs,” Diamond explains to the digital camera in the report.

While detained, Diamond saved recording footage and interviewing the troopers of the Netzah Yehuda battalion. The battalion has lengthy been accused of abuses and human rights violations in opposition to Palestinians and was punished in 2022 for the killing of a 78-year-old U.S. citizen.

“I do think it’s important to note the swiftness and scale of this response is only really happening in large part because of who we are, because we are journalists working for an American news network,” Diamond said on NCS on Monday, March 30, providing his concept for why the IDF suspended the battalion in the aftermath of their detainment.

“We have seen incidents similar to this before involving Palestinian journalists, where there is no accountability. We have also continued to watch as settler violence in the West Bank has continued to increase at a dramatic pace,” Diamond continued.

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The soldiers who detained Diamond and his colleagues told the journalists in Hebrew that the entirety of the West Bank belonged to Israelis and said they would take matters into their own hands if the Israeli government did not punish Palestinians who they accused of killing an 18-year-old settler earlier this month. NCS reported that Palestinians in the area disputed the allegation and accused the settler of trying to steal sheep from Palestinians.

“At the end of the day, if the state doesn’t address what they did,” one soldier tells Diamond, “what do you expect us to do?”

The soldiers talked of revenge, and one soldier admitted he knew they weren’t supposed to be in this area of the West Bank, even under Israeli law, but that “slowly, slowly” they would help in establishing and legitimizing the illegal settlements in the Israeli legal system. That was the soldier dismissed by the Israeli military, according to NCS.

NCS declined to offer additional comment beyond its reporting when PEOPLE reached out.

“The two hours we spent detained by them laid bare the settler ideology motivating many of the soldiers who operate in the occupied West Bank — and the ways in which soldiers frequently act in service of the settler movement,” the journalists wrote.

The journalists profiled Abdullah Daraghmeh, a 75-year-old Palestinian man whom NCS reported was beaten by settlers who broke into his home in the middle of the night while he was asleep and left his “face swollen by the brutal assault that fractured his skull, multiple bones in his face and knocked out his teeth.”

Last week, Israel intentionally bombed a car with three journalists in Lebanon amid its invasion of the country that has killed around 1,200 Lebanese people since March 2, according to The Associated Press. Israel told the Committee to Protect Journalists that the strike targeted one of the journalists it accused without evidence of being part of Hezbollah.

“We have seen a disturbing pattern in this war and in the decades prior of Israel accusing journalists of being active combatants and terrorists without providing credible evidence,” mentioned CPJ regional director Sara Qudah. “Journalists are not legitimate targets, regardless of the outlet they work for.”

The CPJ has recorded 10 journalist killings in 2026, as the Israeli invasion of Lebanon has displaced hundreds of thousands and the bombing of Iran by Israel and the United States has killed 1000’s. At least 185 journalists have been killed in occupied Palestine by the Israeli army since Oct. 7, 2023, according to CPJ data.

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