Israeli troops detain rights workers, confiscate collected photos and testimony from earlier attack

Date: 29 / 04 / 2009 Time: 21:56

[Ma'anImages]

Hebron - Ma'an - Israeli soldiers detained dozens youth and two human rights field workers from Wad Al-Shajina village south of Dura Wednesday.

The researchers were collecting statements from villagers following an attack on the by Israeli troops earlier this week and taking pictures of the scene near a road leading to an Israeli military base in the West Bank.

An Israeli officer ordered the group of the Palestinian Al-Haq and Israeli B’Tselem rights groups to leave the area so researchers and villagers went about 25meters from the area they had been standing.

“We continued our work,” said Al-Haq researcher Hesham Ash-Sharbati, “then the officer returned and confiscated our ID cards and our video cameras.”

The researchers and a dozen youth nearby were detained. Soldiers took the memory cards from the cameras then released all but one 14-year-old boy whose identity is unknown.