Army says soldier has been detained after rights group B’Tselem releases footage that appears to show Hebron killing

An Israeli rights group has released a video showing the moment an Israeli soldier appears to shoot dead a wounded Palestinian in Hebron minutes after he had stabbed another soldier.

The footage, released by B’Tselem, was recorded on Thursday morning during an incident in the Tel Rumeida district of the southern West Bank city. It shows the immediate aftermath of an attack in which an Israeli soldier was wounded by two Palestinian men.

The stabbing of the soldier happened just before a parade by Israeli settlers in the city celebrating the festival of Purim. The video was filmed by Emad abu-Shamsiyah, a B’Tselem volunteer, and shows one of the Palestinians accused of the attack, Abdel-Fattah al-Sharif, 21, lying injured on the ground.

A second Palestinian, Ramzi al-Qasrawi, 20, was also shot dead by soldiers during the attack.

Israeli military sources said the soldier responsible for the shooting had been detained before the emergence of the video on the orders of his unit commander, who reported the shooting. In the graphic footage, the wounded soldier can be seen being lifted into an ambulance while soldiers and armed Israeli civilians mill around.

Clearly visible in the video is the injured Sharif, who has already been shot once, his head still moving. After almost two minutes, a soldier approaches Sharif, aims his weapon at his head and shoots him, apparently killing him. Later footage shows him lying motionless with blood coming from his head.

The video appears to confirm in this instance repeated claims by Palestinians and human rights groups in recent months that Israeli security forces have shot and killed suspected attackers who pose no threat.

A witness told the Palestinian Ma’an news agency: “I heard gunshots, went outside my house to check what it was, and saw several Israeli soldiers yelling and two youths on the ground. A soldier approached one of the youths that was moving while yelling and opened fire at him from zero range.”

The initial Israeli military investigation established that the shooting occurred about three minutes after soldiers shot the two Palestinians knife-wielding during the reported attack.

Sarit Michaeli, a spokeswoman for B’Tselem, said: “In this case it seems crystal clear a soldier executed a wounded Palestinian assailant while he was on the ground. You can see he is alive [but] injured.

“It is also clear from the video that an Israeli soldier has been injured. But this kind of conduct is shocking, especially considering the blasé response of the other soldiers and security forces who are also seen. It raises quite serious questions about why these appear so unsurprising to these other soldiers and that needs to be seriously investigated.”

Despite the evidence that the soldier shot a wounded man who had already been incapacitated, Michaeli added that she had little optimism that the shooting would be properly investigated.

“Since the beginning of this wave of escalation [from last Octoberthere have] been many reports of disproportionate use of force vis-a-vis suspected assailants, none seriously investigated and of those none has seen charges opened.”

Commenting on the incident, an Israeli army spokesman, Peter Lerner, said: “The Israel Defence Forcesviews this incident as a grave breach of IDF values, conduct and standards of military operations. A military police investigation has commenced and the soldier involved has been detained.”

Israel’s defence minister Moshe Ya’alon later described the soldier’s actions as being “in utter breach of IDF values and of our code of ethics in combat.” He added: “Even when the blood boils, we must not allow such loss of reason and such loss of control.”

Ayman Odeh, leader of a bloc of Arab parties in the Israeli parliament also issued a harsh condemnation of the videotaped killing. “Israel has turned in recent months into a place in which executions are carried out in public with the encouragement of cheering mobs.”

In January, concern about possible extrajudicial killings by Israeli forces during the current wave of violence was raised by the Swedish foreign minister, Margot Wallström. The diplomatic row that ensued led to her being called “irresponsible and delusional” by Israel’s foreign ministry, and told she was not welcome in the country. The new footage is bound, however, to raise renewed concern.



Commenting on the footage Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Director Philip Luther said: “The shooting of a wounded and incapacitated person, even if they have been involved in an attack, has absolutely no justification and must be prosecuted as a potential war crime.

“Israeli forces have a long history of carrying out unlawful killings - including extrajudicial executions - in the Occupied Palestinian Territories with impunity. Amnesty has documented a number of similar cases during the upsurge in violence that began in October.”

The incident comes amid a six-month wave of Palestinian stabbings, shootings and car-ramming attacks that has killed 28 Israelis and two Americans. Over the same time, at least 188 Palestinians have died by Israeli fire. Israel says most of them were attackers, and the rest died in clashes with Israeli security forces.

Israel blames the attacks on incitement by Palestinian leaders and social media. Palestinians say the violence stems from frustration at nearly five decades of Israeli military occupation. The Palestinians have also accused Israel of using excessive force and killing assailants who have already been stopped or wounded.