A video of an Israel Police officer threatening wedding guests with a loaded M16 went viral on Friday evening, after people called police to complain about the noise.
The incident occurred in the town Majd al-Kurum in the Galilee. It began when a number of people complained about the excessive noise coming from the wedding. The police squad arrived at the wedding and confronted some of the guests.
מג׳ד אל כרום,״שוטר״ מוציא M16 אתמול.הערב הושעה מתפקידו pic.twitter.com/sLp4K1fU9G
— Real News IL (@RealNewsIL) October 9, 2021
A journalist who was attending the wedding, Mabda Ferhat, began filming the confrontation on his cellphone but the video shows one of the policemen knocking the phone onto the floor and breaking it.
The video then shows the same policeman shoving one of the guests, after which he pulled an M16 out of his police car, loaded it and brandished it menacingly.
"The policeman began screaming at me and threatening with his gun," Mabda Ferhat, a broadcaster for Radio a-Shams and write in a number of news outlets, told Ynet.
"I have been a field reporter for many years and have a journalist's certificate. I did not bother anyone but the policeman chose to act violently and crossed all the red lines. I did not expect that to happen, it is very severe. A person like that needs to be in prison, not in the police," he said.
Ferhat was injured in the incident and spent a few hours in a hospital.
The incident came a week after two policemen were attacked and lightly injured in Kafr Qassem after they attempted to enter the city hall following reports of a violent incident within the building.
The Israel Police's response:
"The 100 [police] hotline received a complaint about an unusually loud sound coming from a wedding in Majd al-Kurum that disturbed all of the area's residents. The local police station arrived at the venue and as it began to search for its owner a number of youngsters gathered around them and hindered their ability to carry out their task, to find the venue's owner in order to reduce the noise."
"Officers of the Israel Police are required to handle complex situations involving citizens that sometimes may evolve into violence on the part of civilians and cause the incident to escalate. Having said this, in this case, and after watching the videos the policeman was transferred from his current position until his conduct is investigated by the relevant authorities."