JERUSALEM: Israel’s military said on Monday (Mar 30) it had pulled a battalion out of the West Bank after a soldier assaulted a CNN photojournalist last week in a village in the occupied Palestinian territory.
A CNN team was reporting on the aftermath of an assault by Israeli settlers and the establishment of an illegal outpost near the Palestinian village of Tayasir on Thursday when they were detained by Israeli soldiers, the Foreign Press Association said in a statement.
After the soldiers pointed their guns at the CNN crew, “an IDF soldier approached CNN’s photojournalist from behind, placed him in a chokehold, slammed him to the ground, and damaged his camera”, said the association, which represents hundreds of journalists in Israel and the Palestinian territories.
CNN corroborated the details in its own report on the incident, identifying the photojournalist as Frenchman Cyril Theophilos.
“This was not a misunderstanding … It was a violent assault on clearly identified journalists and a direct attack on press freedom,” the FPA said.