tel aviv —
The Israeli military announced on Monday that the commander in chief had suspended all operations of a reserve battalion involved in last week’s capture and assault of a CNN team in the West Bank.
The reserve battalion, made up of several hundred reservists from the ultra-Orthodox Netza Yehuda battalion, will be immediately withdrawn from the West Bank and reassigned to training until further notice, Israeli military officials said.
The wide-ranging disciplinary action by Israel’s military chief of staff, Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir, came about 48 hours after CNN’s report on the incident first aired, and appears to be unprecedented in its speed and scope. It also appeared to reflect growing concern within Israeli security services over the spiraling violence by Israeli settlers in the West Bank.
The suspension follows Thursday’s incident in the Palestinian village of Tayasir, where CNN’s Jeremy Diamond and his team were covering the aftermath of violence by settlers who had set up an illegal outpost in the village. The soldiers detained the team after one of the soldiers put CNN photojournalist Cyril Theofilos in a chokehold, knocked him to the ground and damaged his camera.
“The battalion will remain in reserve and undergo a process aimed at strengthening its professional and ethical foundations. Upon completion of this process, the battalion will resume operational activities as determined by the Central Command commander,” the military said in a statement.
Military officials said further action would be taken against the individual soldiers involved in the incident.
The suspended battalion is a reserve unit of Netza Yehuda, an infantry battalion originally established to integrate ultra-Orthodox Jews into the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) while maintaining religious considerations such as gender segregation and strict observance. But in recent years, the battalion has been stationed primarily in the West Bank, where it has attracted members of radical right-wing settler groups such as Hilltop Youth.
US President Joe Biden’s administration considered imposing sanctions on Netza Yehuda in 2024 for alleged gross human rights violations against Palestinians, citing reports of killings, beatings and other abuses. The program was halted after Israel provided information indicating that the IDF had taken corrective action.
During CNN’s detention, several soldiers told the cameras that they believed the entire West Bank belonged to Jews and were seeking revenge for the alleged killing of an Israeli settler days earlier. One of the soldiers named Meir admitted that the Tayasil outpost was illegal, but said that with his help it would be legalized “slowly, slowly.”
Israel’s far-right Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir denounced the battalion’s suspension as a “grave mistake that will damage our combatants and Israel’s deterrence.”
The CNN report received significant attention in the Israeli media and was covered by all major Israeli news outlets, shining a rare spotlight on settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank and the role of the Israeli military there.
Yair Golan, leader of the Democratic Party and former deputy chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, called on Zamir to “speak clearly to his subordinates and the government above: There is no such thing as ‘forgivable’ terrorism. Terrorism is terrorism, and terrorism will be met with an iron fist.”
The Israeli Journalists Union called on military authorities to fully prosecute the soldiers who assaulted the crew.
The disciplinary action came a day after Israeli military spokesperson Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani publicly apologized to CNN for the incident and vowed a swift investigation.
