News / Palestine

Sex offenses in Israeli military jumped by 15% in 2014

Monday, 06 April 2015 7:29 AM [ Last Update: Monday, 06 April 2015 7:28 AM ]

The photo shows Israeli female soldiers at a checkpoint near the Egyptian border, August 19, 2011. © AFP

The number of sexual assaults in the Israeli military rose by fifteen percent in the year 2014, new figures show.

The statistics obtained by TheMarker via the Movement for Freedom of Information show a record number of 1073 sexual harassment cases that were reported in 2014.

Of that figure, 667 complaints were filed in the military and the rest were among civilian employees.

The number of the cases makes an average figure of three sexual harassment cases per day.

Experts believe that many cases of sexual harassment go unreported in the Israeli military.

The number of sexual assaults in the Israeli military was 777 in 2012 and 930 in 2013.

On March 13, the chief prosecutor of the Israeli army, Udi Ben Eliezer, said that 37 Israeli officers and soldiers were indicted for sex offenses in 2014, showing a 40-percent jump in comparison with the previous year.

He added that most of the sexual harassment cases were perpetrated by military officials against their subordinates.

He also lashed out at the high-ranking officials of the regime’s military for turning a blind eye to the frequent sex offenses committed under their command.

“I expect commanders not to keep it to themselves, but to come forward and report it. Sometimes we discover that there were large groups of people who knew of an abusive person for a long time, and no one was surprised when an investigation was opened. Commanders must not stand idly by and let these things happen,” he stated.

The issue of sexual misconduct in the Israeli army has given rise to heated debates over the past years.

In 2014, it was revealed that senior officials of the Israeli military covered up a sexual scandal in which six soldiers were harassed in Givati Brigade. The reports also said that the criminal case was not reported to the regime’s judiciary and that the offender had just been transferred to another unit.

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