At least 17 soldiers and five civilians are under investigation for the rape of an 11-year-old girl at an Israeli air base, the military confirmed on Monday.
A spokesperson for the Israeli army told the local press that the incident was very grave and ”seriously deviates from appropriate behavioural norms and values”.
According to reports in the Israeli media, the girl — whose father is a non-commissioned officer in the army — was living with her family at an air base in the south of Israel. She began to have sex with soldiers and workers at the base from the age of 11 until the age of 14.
The girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told investigators that she agreed to sex, but according to Israeli law a girl under 16 cannot legally engage in consensual sex, and the men are expected to be charged with statutory rape.
The news was greeted with shock by Israelis, who tend to believe their army is morally superior to those in other countries. The soldiers questioned in the case said that the girl told them she was 16 or 17, and that they had no idea of her real age. One of the suspects told the daily Maariv that the girl initiated the sexual encounters.
Military police became suspicious during a separate investigation and informed the base commander. The girl’s family has since moved from the base and she has been in hospital several times for psychiatric illness, the reports said.
The soldiers under investigation are still serving although they are not allowed to be promoted or go on training courses. Police are carrying out a parallel investigation related to the civilian suspects.
The case marks a new low for the military, once Israel’s most revered institution, which has been tarnished in recent years by incidents of financial corruption and sexual misconduct.
Air force officers were horrified by the scandal. One colonel told the newspaper Haaretz: ”We are still trying to understand how this happened. I don’t understand how our soldiers violated the norms of the IDF [Israel Defence Force] in such a callous way. What bothers me no less is the fact that we, the commanders, didn’t know about it.
”We’re trying to check how we missed such a serious incident for such a long time. I’m worried by the fact that not one soldier raised a red flag — not those who participated in the acts and not their friends who might have known about it. I would have expected that there would be a righteous man in Sodom who would complain so that these terrible acts would be stopped.”
A former army psychologist told Israel radio that the continued offences would have required a widespread ”conspiracy of silence”. Colonel Gadi Amir said: ”This kind of phenomenon couldn’t have happened without many other people knowing about it, including officers. I believe there was a conspiracy of silence in this case.”
Amir, former head of the army’s behaviour sciences department, said the scandal marked a low point in military conduct. ”This is well beyond a criminal offence. It is rape and it is a breach of norms and ethical codes that, without them, our army cannot continue to exist.”
Court cases against senior army officers charged with sexual harassment and assault have been on the increase in recent years. Experts say it reflects a gradual shift in Israeli society toward women asserting their rights and refusing to accept behaviour that used to be considered routine.
A pressure group of ex-soldiers called Breaking the Silence has worked for two years to force Israeli society to confront the crimes committed by soldiers in their name by recording testimonies about the abuse and murder of Palestinians. – Guardian Unlimited Â