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JERUSALEM: A leading Israeli rights organization said Monday that it had requested a military investigation into a senior commander over suspected war crimes in the occupied West Bank.
The request comes days after Major General Avi Bluth, head of the Israeli military in the West Bank, appeared in a video in which he called for curfews and encirclements of Palestinian villages.
Contacted by AFP about the request, the Israeli military did not provide immediate comment.
In a letter to the military advocate-general, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) urged an inquiry into Bluth, citing comments and actions it said amounted to collective punishment of Palestinians.
“We ask you to order the opening of an investigation against Major General Bluth on suspicion of war crimes,” ACRI wrote in the letter, which was dated Sunday.
Bluth had said on Friday that “every (Palestinian) village and every enemy... will pay a heavy price” for attacks against Israelis.
His remarks, made in a video widely circulated in Israeli media, followed the arrest of a Palestinian man from the village of Al-Mughayyir who was accused by the army of carrying out a “terrorist attack” nearby.
In the same video, Bluth added that the villages of Palestinian attackers could face curfews, encirclements and terrain “shaping actions” with the aim of deterrence.
On Sunday, Israeli bulldozers uprooted hundreds of trees in Al-Mughayyir in the presence of the Israeli military.
The army said it had “cleared” the area after a “series of terror attacks originating from that village,” adding the vegetation “obstructed the identification of enemy movement.”
In a press statement on Monday, ACRI accused the army of having cut down the trees to impose “collective punishment” on Palestinians in Al-Mughayyir after a resident carried out a shooting attack.
“For months, lawlessness in the West Bank has made war crimes and crimes against humanity part of daily life. Alarmingly, the army has begun to boast about it,” the group said in its letter to the army’s prosecutor.
“We ask you to order the army to immediately cease all acts of collective punishment, including the destruction of property.”
Military Advocate-General Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi has so far not confirmed to AFP his receipt of the letter.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967 and violence there has soared since the start of the war in Gaza almost two years ago.
Bluth has in recent months been criticized by Israeli settler groups in the West Bank for his condemnation of acts of violence they are accused of committing.
Born in a West Bank settlement, Bluth served in the past as military secretary to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.