Attorney Yehuda Shimon, the man accused of assaulting an IDF officer Sunday, denied he was guilty of the attack, telling Arutz Sheva the incident had been completely misrepresented in the media.
During an interview with Arutz Sheva Monday, Shimon denied he had attacked Sayeret Golani commander Lt. Col. Eyoub Koyef, adding that he was in fact the victim of an assault by Sayeret Golani soldiers.
“As I said yesterday, I didn’t attack anyone, I was attacked by [Koyef] and his soldiers,” Shimon told Arutz Sheva.
“I can understand his [Koyef’s] frustration: they sent the commander of Sayeret Golani [an elite IDF unit] after intensive training for fighting the enemy to go disperse a few youths from a road on the edge of Samaria.”
“I understand his frustration over the task he was given, and it is possible he took it out on me.”
“I want to make it very clear: I didn’t attack him. This whole story is just Kafkaesque from beginning to end. I just hope that in the wake of the incident they don’t start a week of training for the Sayeret Golani on how to disperse protesters.”
“The bottom line is that in this incident I was injured and my shirt was torn. It is unthinkable for me to attack a soldier, an officer.”
On Sunday, a scuffle broke out outside of the Israeli town of Kedumim in Samaria after soldiers from the Sayeret Golani unit were deployed to disperse protesters demonstrating against the police department’s handling of the Ahuvya Sandak case, in which a 16-year-old hilltop youth was killed during a police chase in Samaria last month.
The IDF claims that Shimon assaulted Lt. Col. Eyoub Koyef – a claim Shimon denied Sunday.
Shimon claimed Sunday to have been assaulted by both the commander and his soldier for reprimanding them over seizing his daughters in an intimate manner.
"The teenagers leading the protest had been blocking the road for some time when the order came to remove them by force. I saw the soldiers grabbing one of my daughters near her chest, in a very intimate fashion, so I approached him and shouted 'Do not touch the girls! Do not touch the girls!'”
“The soldiers set upon me immediately, although even the police officers around could see I'd done nothing wrong. I was allowed to arrive for interrogation at the precinct of my own accord, and was released immediately after my interview. Until the IDF's announcement, I did not know that it was a commander at all. This has been a sad day for the Golani, the IDF and the state," Shimon said.