The report Alleged Investigation focuses on the systematic failures that lead to investigative failures by the Military Police Criminal Investigations Division (MPCID) regarding offenses allegedly committed by IDF soldiers against Palestinians and their property. Yesh Din figures, based on 192 complaints monitored over six years and an analysis of 67 MPCID investigation files, show that 96.5 percent of complaints submitted by Palestinians against soldiers are closed without indictments being filed.

The files analyzed by the report cover a wide spectrum of serious offenses against Palestinians and their property: from causing death and injuries, to violence against detainees and passers-by, to looting and damage to property. The report cites the absence of MPCID bases in the West Bank as one of the main causes of the MPCID investigative failures. This absence makes it significantly harder for Palestinians to file complaints against soldiers without the assistance of human rights organizations, since they are barred from filing complaints directly. Other main cases include: victims withdraw complaints fearing revocation of their permits or harm by the soldiers against whom they complained; and the operational debriefing acts to thwart criminal investigation.

Due to the absence of MPCID bases in the West Bank, a Palestinian victim of an offense who wants to file a complaint needs to coordinate it with Israel and in most cases must employ the help of a human rights organization. The report found that only 9 percent of complaints filed by the MPCID were filed by the victims themselves. Obstacles in this process in reaching the base in many cases lead the complainant to give up on the process. Complaints filed to MPCID through Israeli policeman with the DCL sometimes get lost; The Jerusalem MPCID officer told Yesh Din that this is a “well-known problem.”

The report also found that beyond the operational debriefing constituting an investigative obstruction, which the report examines at length, failures were also detected in the regular work of MPCID investigators. Sometimes they fail to summon central witnesses, to use polygraphs and to set up a face-to-face confrontation between the victim and the suspect as well as failing to conduct identification line-ups. Furthermore, the failure to provide translation makes the investigation more difficult. Something the report also highlighted, and which was significantly expanded on in the Lacuna Report is MPCID’s refusal to consider not only the culpability of the suspects but also of their commanders.