Three Israeli policemen were charged today with abusing two Palestinian youths who complained of being beaten up and forced to eat gravel.
The indictment came a day after Israeli media broadcast photographs of the youths, whose backs were crisscrossed with welts caused by beatings said to have been inflicted by the three paramilitary officers from a border police unit.
The border police commander suspended all operations for two hours today and ordered the unit's 4,000 troops to attend lectures on civil rights and how to treat civilians.
The three indicted policemen were accused of pummelling the Palestinians with fists and batons, then forcing them to eat gravel and kiss their shoes, a particularly severe insult in the Arab world, media reports said, adding all three officers had confessed.
Nine other border policemen have been arrested on suspicion of lesser charges such as theft, the Justice Ministry said.
The three men, who were indicted by an Israeli court on Wednesday, face a maximum 14-year prison sentence.
A lawyer for one of them was quoted by media as telling the court that the men were under stress from working long hours under tremendous pressure.
Police spokesman Gil Kleiman said the indictment of the three and allegations against the other nine were "in no way indicative of the day-to-day actions of border policemen in their contact with Palestinian civilians".
The border police patrol Israel's porous frontier with the West Bank as well as checkpoints in order to prevent militants, including suicide bombers, entering the Jewish state.