Today (Sunday) at 11:00 a.m. there will be a discussion regarding police brutality at demonstrations and in general. The debate will be held within the framework of the National Security Committee, in which the various opinions will be presented, including data from the Knesset's research center.
According to the official data of the research center, in the years 2019-2022, 161 cases of police brutality were reported, of which 51 indictments were filed against police officers regarding the use of force that is not within the scope of the law, whic allows the enforcement authorities to use force in cases of violation of the law.
According to the data, from 2019 to 2020, the number of use-of-force cases in the position increased from 27 to 45, an increase of about 67%. In 2021 this number increases to 51, an increase of another 13%, and in 2022 it is reduced to 39. Since indictments are not necessarily filed in the same year in which the case was opened, it is not possible to associate the indictments with the cases opened each year separately, but looking at the four years together, we see that indictments were filed in approximately 31% of the cases that reached the police disciplinary department.
According to data that the Department for Investigating Police forwarded to the Knesset's Research and Information Center, in 2022, 1,124 complaints were submitted due to unlawful use of force. This figure is from the number of complaints that citizens have submitted but does not include what is called "police material" in the National Police, i.e. claims that they have made are investigated by the police and transferred to the National Police by the police through an administrative route, without the complainants contacting the National Police.
For the purpose of illustrating the magnitude, we note that in 2022 a total of 3,249 complaints from citizens were submitted to the Police, to which 1,758 items of "police material" were added - at least some of which include allegations of the use of force, but as mentioned are not included in the aforementioned 1,124 complaints.
According to the DIP: "Significant resources are invested in locating the citizens in question and contacting them, but experience shows that a large majority of the claims in these cases are abandoned by the citizens, and they do not at all seek to stand behind their complaint against the police officer."