This week it became known that the Minister of Internal Security Amir Ohana, Elected to the post of Commissioner of Police he is standing Kobe Saturn, Border Police Commander. Tonight it was reported in News 13 that the past of the commissioner-designate is apparently not as clean as previously thought. According to the report, in March 2011 while evacuating settlers from Gilad Farms, Saturn instructed his subordinates to use plastic bullets that were banned from use.
In the same incident, the police used the plastic bullets against the settlers for the first time, in an incident that is recognized as a prominent point of conflict between the Israeli police and right-wing supporters in Israel. A person present at the incident said that “Kobi commanded the police force at the incident, he gave an instruction to fire bullets that are forbidden to use, as a result several boys who were at the scene were injured”.
Amir Ohana and Superintendent Kobi Shabtai (Photo: Yonatan Zindel, Flash 90, Knesset Spokeswoman, Jonathan Samia)Retired Hagai Dotan, Who previously served as the commander of the Judea and Samaria district, said that Saturn is “an expert in weapons, he is a valiant and brave man.” Dotan says that after the incident, phone calls began to arrive and there was a commotion from various people that there was shooting at the hill boys. When he asked for clarification from Saturn, the conversation turned into a shouting match between the two, he said.
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The case unfolded until the Knesset plenum, where the Knesset member asked Yariv Levin Explicitly order not to repeat the incident and not to use the plastic bullets against the settlers. The then Minister of Internal Security, Yitzhak Aharonovitch Said that the use of bullets was done in a measured, tiny manner, exercising discretion and with the approval of the force commander.
After Aharonovitch’s speech, it was discovered that the report received by the Minister of Internal Security was inaccurate. Contrary to what he said in the Knesset, the shooting was carried out at close range and without the police feeling any threat to their lives. Following the revelation, the minister convened a meeting in his office, where he was exposed to a new presentation, which angered him because he discovered that he had been misled. Following this, District Commander Hagai Dotan was reprimanded by Aharonovitch.
Dotan returned to Saturn once more and asked him to repeat the details of the incident once more and told him that he had to contact him for confirmation of the shooting before giving the order. Saturn responded, to Dotan’s claim that “I did not have enough time and that is what happened, so I fired.”
Retired Chief of Staff Ephraim Erlich He said that more than once, Saturn’s fondness for weapons and pyrotechnics caused embarrassment to the police. “He has a baggage in Arsenal that is enough to attack a fortified target,” said Ehrlich, who added that he was “more of a fighter than a policeman.” According to him, police officers who served under Saturn’s command at some point began working in the club of a known offender, when the retired Chief of Staff approached Saturn, the latter did not prevent them from working under the offender and this could happen.
Israel Police Responding to the publications, she said that “this is nonsense and malice on the part of stakeholders who act out of personal motives in an attempt to discredit Saturn’s superintendent and thwart his appointment. Beyond that, the allegations are not worthy of consideration.”