Israel drops case against five men accused of murdering Palestinian captive

Israeli authorities have previously been accused of condoning settler violence, failing to prosecute Israeli perpetrators or protect Palestinians. This accusation, stemming from a Reuters/Ammar Awad report, reflects international concerns regarding Israel's actions in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Israel's state prosecutor on Monday dismissed an investigation into five men suspected of killing a bound Palestinian man following the Hamas-led October 7th attacks. Despite video evidence and confessions from the suspects, prosecutor Amit Eisman dropped the investigation citing “low credibility of the confessions, which may have just been boasting.”

The five men, Roy Yifrah, Israel Biton, Akiva Kaufman, Israel Peretz, and Sal Ofir, have been under investigation since November 2023. They were suspected of kidnapping a Palestinian man, alleged to be a Hamas elite fighter involved in the October 7th attacks. Ofir claimed in a November 2023 interrogation that the main suspect, Yifrah, showed him a video of himself stabbing a bound Palestinian man in the face, killing him. At the time, four judges issued search warrants after concluding there was reasonable suspicion of murder.

Yifrah admitted to police, and in WhatsApp messages to others, that he killed a “terrorist” outside of combat. Ofir also admitted in WhatsApp messages to killing a “terrorist” after sexually and physically abusing him. Ofir, a settler from the Elkanah settlement in the occupied West Bank, is also involved in another case, where he and two other Israeli officials were charged in December 2024 with violently attacking a Palestinian man in August, kidnapping him and leaving him near a checkpoint, where the man was found unconscious and bleeding. The Israeli newspaper Maariv reported that the Tel Aviv District Court issued arrest warrants for Yifrah, Biton, and Ofir, finding reasonable suspicion of murder.

All suspects in the killing denied that they killed the Palestinian man when he posed no threat. Ofir said he sent the messages to show off. According to Maariv, the investigation showed contradictions in the suspects' accounts, leading the state prosecutor to close the case due to a lack of sufficient evidence to charge them with murder. However, based on evidence, Yifrah admitted to the killing, the victim’s body was found in his car, and a video of him beating the Palestinian man was also found. The state prosecutor decided to close the case because he deemed Yifrah’s confession false, made to "boast about his contribution to the war," according to Maariv.

In late July, nine Israeli soldiers were arrested on suspicion of raping a detained Palestinian man at the Sde Teiman detention facility in the Negev desert in southern Israel. The incident sparked a backlash in Israel, with far-right mobs, including an MP and a minister, storming the detention center and military courts to protest the arrests. On Tuesday, five of the detainees were released to house arrest, pending a possible decision by the military to bring charges. According to a recent poll, most Israelis believe that prison officials accused of sexually assaulting Palestinian detainees should not face criminal charges, but rather should be disciplined by the military.