Israeli ex-soldier defends ‘shameful’ Facebook snaps

A former Israeli soldier who sparked outrage by posting pictures on Facebook of herself posed smirking next to blindfolded and handcuffed Palestinian prisoners insisted yesterday she has done nothing wrong.

In local media interviews Eden Abergil, aged about 20, seemed mystified by the uproar over the photographs taken at an army base near the Gaza Strip and uploaded to the social networking website.

“What’s wrong with that? I don’t understand,” she told Israel’s army radio.

“There was no violence in the pictures, there was no disrespect,” she said, insisting she had been caught on camera with the Palestinians merely “in the background”.

It was not clear whether the men in the pictures had been detained for security reasons or for trying to work illegally in Israel.

“I was photographed innocently, naïvely, without any political significance,” Ms Abergil argued.

One photo shows a smirking Ms Abergil crouching in front of three seated detainees – one with white hair, another with a greying beard and a skullcap and a third, a younger man with black hair who is hanging his head.

Another shows her sitting close to the younger man, twisting her head archly towards him.

Israeli military spokesman Captain Barak Raz described the images as “repulsive photos, shameful photos, photos that the IDF (Israel Defence Forces) strongly condemns.

“As an officer and a commander, I am disgusted by such acts,” he said.

Any soldier participating in such actions would be “dealt with severely”, the army said, adding that although Ms Abergil was discharged last year, the military would be looking into her actions.