The IDF says it opposes the battalion's full disbandment, which is considered one of the flagship projects for integrating haredim into the military.
The IDF on Monday explained its decision, which leaked overnight, to suspend, but not disband, the Netzah Yehuda battalion involved in allegedly harming a CNN team over the weekend.
On the one hand, the IDF did more than just punish the specific, smaller company of a dozen or so soldiers; the suspension applied to the whole battalion, a larger group of hundreds of soldiers, most of whom were not involved in the incident.
On the other hand, the IDF did not take the strictest possible approach: it only suspended the battalion and did not disband it, and is sending it to be reeducated on IDF values.
According to the IDF, simply punishing the company would not have been serious enough.
Battalion has had several other problematic incidents in recent years
This is because the incident was so severe and did such damage to Israel's reputation that a smaller punishment would have been seen globally as inadequate.
Further, the entire battalion has had several other problematic incidents in recent years, such that the IDF does not see the incident as isolated or limited to the specific soldiers involved.
During the Biden administration, there were even actions taken toward banning working with the Netzah Yehuda battalion.
However, the battalion has recorded many military successes in attack and defense during the current war.
It also has an unusually high rate of response among its reserve soldiers to summons.
Finally, the battalion is one of the flagship projects for integrating haredim into the IDF.
Accordingly, the IDF opposed the battalion's full disbandment.
IDF to also punish soldiers involved
The IDF further said that the two specific soldiers who allegedly involved in the incident would be punished in the near future.
One soldier allegedly put a CNN photojournalist in a chokehold and threw him to the ground, breaking his camera, and this soldier is already being criminally probed.
If there is an indictment, that criminal process will determine his punishment.
Soldier denies allegations of physical violence against journalist
Currently, the soldier is denying the physical violence allegations, and the military police will need to probe who they believe in that regard.
But even if there is no indictment, the IDF said the soldier will receive disciplinary punishments based on his general conduct during the incident.
In addition, the second soldier who is not accused of any physical violence, but who made statements encouraging "revenge" against Palestinians and otherwise undermined the IDF's values of purity of weapons and general ethics has been fired from his position.
