A former Israeli soldier who posed for pictures with Palestinian detainees and posted them on her Facebook page defended her actions today, as more images emerged of Israeli service personel posing alongside blindfolded detainees and dead bodies.
"I still don't understand what I did wrong," Eden Abergil told Israeli army radio. Abergil, a reserve officer with the Israeli army who completed compulsory military service last year, provoked outrage over photographs in which she posed next to handcuffed, blindfolded Palestinians.
She told army radio: "There's no violence or intention to humiliate anyone in the pictures. I just had my picture taken with them in the background. I did it out of excitement, to remember the experience. It wasn't a political statement or any kind of statement. It was about remembering my experiences in the army and that's it."
The pictures have provoked a furious rection from Palestinians, who compared them to images of US soldiers abusing of Iraqi prisoners in Baghdad in 2004
"This is not very different to what was exposed at Abu Ghraib in Iraq," said Mustafa Barghouti, secretary general of the Palestinian National Initiative. "It is not an individual act, or a personal act or a lack of judgment, but a part of the constant racist behaviour that is implanted in the Israeli army and a whole philosophy of discrimination against Arabs and Palestinians. The most important characteristic of this treatment is humiliation."
An Israeli army spokesperson described the Facebook photographs as "shameful behaviour".
Breaking the Silence, an Israeli group of army veterans that documents the experiences of soldiers serving in the occupied West Bank, released more photographs to demonstrate that the practice is widespread.
The group said its preliminary batch of graphic pictures, some featuring Israeli soldiers posing next to dead bodies, was collated over the last decade and that a few of the images were from the Facebook pages of active soldiers. It asked the Israeli army to "clarify that this is a widespread phenomenon, not an unusual incident by one soldier".
Yehuda Shaul, one of the group's founders, said: "This is commonplace. Don't you take pictures of your everyday life? For these soldiers serving in the occupied territories, this is what they see 24/7 – handcuffed and blindfolded Palestinians."
Shaul described the photographs of Israeli soldiers standing next to what appear to be dead Palestinian men as "victory souvenirs". "Being in a place where you cannot see Palestinians as human beings is the default when you are serving in the occupied Palestinian territories."
Khalida Jarar, a Palestinian politician and director of Addameer, the Palestinian prisoner support and human rights association, said: "There are many more violations and abuses of Palestinians, without photographs. The soldiers take these pictures to show that they can do anything they want to Palestinians."