Question

More exploits from the Jordan Valley right after the liberation.

One day, the young, upright soldier from Hashomer Hatzair was given a mission.
A command car loaded with wafers, chocolates, and other canteen goods had to pass through the forward positions and sell the products to the soldiers stationed there.
He was to provide security.

He joined a patrol at some point. There were two men there from a certain ethnic community whose moral values were not especially aligned with those of the IDF.
The soldier from Hashomer Hatzair did not know about the crime they had committed a few minutes earlier and joined the patrol.

They were driving along the river, and suddenly several sheep crossed the river from Jordan into Israel—alone, with no owner, nothing.

They stopped, took one sheep, put it on the command car so there would be something to eat at the end of the day… and kept driving.

Suddenly a light plane was circling above them. A chase. Rafael Eitan was after them.
Why?

It turned out that earlier, the two soldiers from that uncivilized community had been standing near the Allenby Bridge and, disgracefully, in IDF uniforms, had simply committed armed robbery with their army-issued weapons…

They stopped a luxury car belonging to a lawyer from Gaza who had decided to leave the country for Jordan with his family, and robbed him of 15,000 Jordanian dinars in cash (an enormous sum in those days). The lawyer reached the crossing and demanded to see the commander…
So the complaint went up level by level until it reached the ears of Rafael Eitan (then a lieutenant colonel?) who was in charge of the entire Jordan Valley sector.
Rafael Eitan asked,
Are you sure?
How will I identify the robbers?
The lawyer answered that afterward they had also put a sheep on the command car—please locate them and return what was stolen.

Rafael Eitan got into a light plane and scanned the whole area, and indeed saw a command car with a sheep on it.
An aerial and ground pursuit followed, and the robbers were caught.
They were brought to headquarters, and the man who had been robbed was there.

As soon as they arrived—even before…
the commander approached one of the robbers and slapped him with a slap the likes of which had not been given since the six days of Creation, and apparently no teeth were left…
Then he turned to the second robber and again…

He simply smashed their teeth…
The upright Hashomer Hatzair soldier, who had not been a partner and knew nothing, of course got off with nothing.
But he describes that mayor—famous, veteran, and one of the strongest men in the country (formerly the commander)—as a violent and cruel person.

My question:
Is that mayor really violent and cruel, based on what he did even before hearing both sides?
Before a trial?
Before understanding that in their community this was an accepted moral norm of looting?
Or did he act properly, and is this exactly how robbers should be treated—certainly when they are in uniform and using IDF weapons—and so that others may hear and fear, perhaps it is even proper from the outset to act this way?