The Israel Police's National Unit for Investigation of Serious and International Crime (known by its Hebrew acronym Yachbal) has failed once again in substantiating charges against people it suspects of carrying out so-called "price tag" actions.
On Sunday, the Tel Aviv Magistrates' Court released unconditionally two girls suspected of vandalizing IDF vehicles in the Binyamin Brigade base in Bet El. The Honenu NGO, which assists Jews suspected of nationalist crimes, reported that Yachbal investigators asked Judge Oded Shacham to extend the girls' remand by eight days but he refused to do so.
The girls were represented by Honenu lawyer Ariel Atari.
Meanwhile, Judge Shacham extended the remand of a soldier who is also suspected of "price tag" actions. Police asked to extend his incarceration for 8 days, but the judge only granted 4 days' remand.
The soldier told the court that the investigators have been denying him meals, and abusing him physically and mentally.
The "price tag" actions are mostly low-level vandalism against Arab targets and occasionally against the IDF. They are called thus because the perpetrators often use the term "price tag" in their graffiti do describe their actions, which they see as responses to Arab terrorism and IDF persecution of Jews in Judea and Samaria.
Over the past year, police have carried out a series of arrests of "price tag" suspects, and have always wound up releasing them without filing charges.