JERUSALEM, Friday, December 21, 2018 (WAFA) – The family of Qasem Abbasi, 17, who was shot dead by Israeli forces at a checkpoint near Ramallah late Thursday evening, said their son was killed in cold blood, refuting claims by Israeli military that he attempted to ram his car into the soldiers as the reason for his fatal shooting.

Mohammad Abbasi, one of Qasem’s relatives, said he was inside the car with Qasem on their way to Nablus when they reached the DCO checkpoint, on the northern entrance to Al-Bireh city in the West Bank. He said an Israeli policeman approached and told them the road was closed and that they should use an alternative road.

He said they drove the car a little bit back until they reached a junction, before they noticed that they were by mistake driving in the direction of the illegal Israeli settlement of Beit El. The driver then drove the car back, added Mohammad, after he noticed he was driving the wrong road, and soon after they were in the middle of rampaging Israeli settlers.

At that point, Mohammad said, they came into a heavy barrage of gunfire from all directions, and Qasem, who was sitting on the back seat behind the driver, was seriously injured by live bullets.

Mohammad added that they called an ambulance to rescue Qasem, and while he was doing so an Israeli police patrol reached them and asked all of the passengers to get out of the car. The policemen then attacked Qasem with the butts of their rifles before Mohammad told them he had been seriously injured, and that he was unable to leave the car.

Mohammad said an ambulance reached the site in about an hour, and that point the soldiers and policemen had already wrapped Qasem‘s body to declare his death.

The Abbasi family council demanded in a press release the Israeli occupation authorities to hand over his body so that an autopsy can be conducted on the body to prove that the Israeli narrative was falsified.

M.N