An indictment was filed Tuesday in Jerusalem District Court against David Israel, a 38-year-old Ashdod resident who served as a police officer in the Hebron area, for stealing cash and property from ‘Palestinian’ homes during searches for weapons. Israel is also charged with possessing an IDF smoke grenade he stole. The indictment was filed by the Police Internal Investigations Department as part of a plea deal, and charges the officer with multiple counts of theft by a public servant, as well as fraud and breach of trust. He’s also charged with illegally storing fireworks.
According to the indictment, between October 2022 and December 2023 the officer participated in operational activities in ‘Palestinian’ homes in Hebron and surrounding villages, as well as law enforcement operations in the Ras al-Amud neighborhood of East Jerusalem. On numerous occasions, the defendant exploited his position, and while he was supposed to be maintaining public order, he stole property from the homes. The affair came to light after residents reported that items were stolen from them during the searches. Among the incidents detailed in the indictment, in July 2023 the defendant stole from a home in the town of Yatta, south of Hebron, 8,680 shekels, 320 Jordanian dinars, gold rings and earrings, and a cell phone.
In November of that year he took from a home in another village in the area a wallet containing 10,000 shekels, as well as a gold necklace. In other homes he got his hands on gold wedding rings, necklaces and watches. Just two days before a search was conducted at his home, he managed to take in another search two phones, four watches, 1,000 shekels and 200 euros.
The indictment also reveals that in June 2022 the officer stole a phone that had been previously seized and transferred to the registration office at the Ma’ale Adumim police station—from inside the station itself. In December 2023, three searches were conducted at David Israel’s home in Ashdod, during which many items of stolen property were seized along with the smoke grenade. In one of the searches, a package of 15 fireworks was also found, which was not stored in an explosives storage facility.