JERUSALEM, February 6, 2017 (WAFA) – Israeli human rights group B’Tselem said in a statement Sunday that an Israeli soldier shot dead a Palestinian on 22 December 2016, despite posing no threat.
Ahmad Nasha’t Kharubi, 19 was killed in Kafr Aqab town, north of Jerusalem, after Israeli forces, accompanied by "Civil Administration" representatives, entered the town around midnight to seal the home of Masbah Abu Sbeih, who had shot two Israelis in East Jerusalem two months earlier on 9 October 2016.
Abu Sbeih’s home is located in a part of Kafr Aqab defined as Area C, “but Kharubi was killed in a part of the village located inside the municipal borders of Jerusalem.”
The Israeli army claimed that during the night soldiers “came under fire and incendiary devices were thrown; our forces did not sustain any injuries.”
The army claimed it had responded with gunfire toward a person throwing an incendiary device, ultimately killing that individual. But testimonies collected by B‘Tselem show that the young man posed no threat to soldiers.
B‘Tselem field researcher Iyad Hadad interviewed a 25-year-old resident of Um al-Sharayet, who was present at the scene and remains unidentified to protect him from being detained by the army, said a sniper shot Kharubi despite the fact that there were no clashes or stones being thrown from his direction.
“There were hardly any clashes on our side of the roadblock, but from the south, on the other side of the jeeps we heard the sounds of stun grenades and live gunfire, but we couldn’t see the clashes. We saw snipers on the roofs of tall buildings.”
He explained, “15 minutes after we arrived, a sniper fired a live bullet that hit Ahmad, but no-one could see him or work out where the sniper was – on a roof or on the ground.” The young man said the sniper tried to shoot the other guy who came to Ahmad’s aid, but missed him.
A 19-year-old resident of al-‘Amari refugee camp, said he was standing 10 meters behind Ahmad and the Israeli police were standing in a dark area. “We lifted Ahmad up and dragged him a few meters, bending down low because we were afraid of the snipers.”
A paramedic and ambulance driver with the Red Crescent in al-Bireh, was stationed with an ambulance in the square in Kafr ‘Aqab on the night in question, ready to evacuate injured persons.
He told B’Tselem that he “didn’t see any clashes… at least not in the area between me and the military force blocking the road." He described the atmosphere as "calm."
The paramedic heard two live gunshots, two or three seconds apart, from the direction of the forces blocking the road. He said he moved forward with the ambulance a few meters to see the results of the shooting. “A few young men between me and the soldiers shouting “ambulance, ambulance,” he recalled.
The ambulance drove up to the youth to put the injured man on a stretcher in the ambulance. The paramedic then began to perform resuscitation and artificial ventilation, but his heart stopped beating on the way to Ramallah hospital.
M.H./M.K.
