A complaint for torture against Y. O., a Franco-Israeli soldier, was filed on April 11th with the Paris prosecutor general. The man is currently serving in the Israeli army, as stated in the complaint filed by lawyers Gilles Devers and Lucie Simon on behalf of four associations: the Association of Palestinians in France – Al Jaliya, Justice and Rights Without Borders (JDSF), and the March 30 Movement based in Brussels. The plaintiffs accuse Y. O. of committing a war crime through acts of torture in the context of a genocidal military attack. In late February, a fifty-eight second video filmed by the soldier and shared on the messaging app Telegram showed a prisoner in a white jumpsuit, blindfolded and with his hands tied behind his back, trying to get off a truck. The Israeli soldier comments on the scene he is filming: “You see these bastards, my nephew, these sons of bitches. Get off, you son of a bitch… on the stones… There, you motherfucker.” The prisoner gets off the truck. “You see this son of a bitch. Look, he pissed himself. Look, I’ll show you his back, you’ll laugh, look!” The prisoner is now facing away from the camera. “They tortured him to make him talk. You see his back.” “Superiority, contempt, provocation” In the next sequence, detainees are sitting on the ground. “Ah, son of a bitch,” continues the author of the video. “Shut your mouths, you bunch of sluts. Ah, you were happy on October 7, you sons of bitches.” According to the complaint, the prisoners are transferred to a “secret” Israeli prison. In a third sequence, they are seen on a bus. “They are subjected to this well-known torture by the Israeli army, who imposes on them for hours on end an obsessive music,” write the lawyers in their complaint. According to the plaintiffs, after an initial interrogation, the prisoners are then “sorted”. Some are released, others are taken to Israel and “placed in secret, in inhumane detention conditions, and then judged for terrorism-related charges by military courts that ignore the right to a defense”. The Israeli state considers them as “illegal combatants” and denies them the protection provided by the 3rd Geneva Convention. The plaintiffs’ lawyers argue that Y. O. “highlights humiliation by passing among threatened and prostrated Palestinians on the ground with an odious attitude of superiority, contempt, and provocation”. According to the complaint, he made the “devious choice” to film this young Palestinian, knowing that simply filming a prisoner, especially in this precarious situation, is an illegal affront to his dignity.
