Officials and residents offer conflicting accounts of incident, which followed pre-dawn raid in village of Umm al-Hiran

A controversial Israeli police operation to demolish buildings in a Bedouin village in the country’s south to make way for a new Jewish town has ended with two fatalities – including an Israeli police officer – amid sharply conflicting versions of what occurred.

The pre-dawn raid by hundreds of armed police on the village of Umm al-Hiran in Negev – regarded as illegal by the Israeli courts – ended with a Bedouin man shot dead in his car and a police officer fatally run over.

Despite claims by Israeli officials that the dead man was a terrorist who had deliberately run into a group of police officers, witnesses – including villagers and Israeli activists – offered a different sequence of events.

They said the man’s car had been fired on by police before it hit two officers lower down a steep dirt road, suggesting the driver lost control after being shot.

Video footage of the incident, taken from a police helicopter, seemed to show at least one police officer opened fire on the driver as the car was moving slowly. An officer to the front and right of the car runs towards it and appears to shoot at least three times from several metres away. It is at this point that the car suddenly appears to accelerate. What is impossible to ascertain from the video, however, is the point at which the driver is shot and how far he was in control of the vehicle at the point that the car speeds up – and why.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Bedouin women outside a structure destroyed by police during the operation in in Umm al-Hiran. Photograph: Peter Beaumont/The Guardian

Yaakub Abu al-Qiyan, 50, a teacher, and Israeli police sergeant Erez Levy, 34, were killed during protests against the demolitions, which come amid a long-running dispute between Israel and the formerly nomadic Bedouins of Umm al-Hiran. Israel moved part of a Bedouin clan to the state-owned land 60 years ago but now wishes to relocate residents to a government-designated Bedouin township despite the fact that the village, home to about 1,000 people, lies outside the area slated for the new town.

Witnesses who spoke to the Guardian said they heard and saw Israeli police fire on a white SUV being driven by Abu al-Qiyan before it appeared to roll down a hill killing Levy, finally coming to a halt after hitting another car.



Michal Haramati, an Israeli activist who was in the village to try to prevent the demolitions, said she heard gunfire before she saw the car coming down the hill.



“It was about 5.30 in the morning. I heard shooting and then saw a big white car coming down the hill that seemed to be out of control. Then it hit the police and carried on until it crashed into another car which stopped it.”

Isaac Kates Rose, another Israeli activist, was about 60 metres away and said the car had attempted to turn away from the police when he heard the shooting start.

Local residents said Abu al-Qiyan was trying to leave town and only lost control of his vehicle after police shot at him. Abu al-Qiyan’s brother, Ahmad, said he had been “murdered in cold blood”. Amnesty International called for an inquiry into the reports of excessive force by police.

“The police are light on the trigger when it comes to Arab citizens,” the advocacy group Adalah said.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Bedouin villagers gather outside a destroyed building in Umm al-Hiran. Photograph: Peter Beaumont/The Guardian

The claims by activists and villagers were in marked contrast to official Israeli accounts, which described Abu al-Qiyan as a terrorist.

Micky Rosenfeld, a police spokesman, said Abu al-Qiyan had sped towards the police officer before knocking down and killing him. “Police were in the area to prevent disturbances during house demolitions in the area. As a result of the incident, there were riots that took place in the area that police responded to.”

Palestinians have carried out a number of vehicular attacks against Israelis over the past year and a half. Earlier this month a Palestinian truck driver rammed into a group of Israeli soldiers in Jerusalem, killing four.

Protests against the demolitions also resulted in Israel’s most prominent Arab-Israeli politician, Ayman Odeh, being injured in the face by what he said was a sponge-tipped bullet. Police denied the claim.

“They attacked [Ayman Odeh] and other people – demonstrators – with stun grenades, teargas directly in people’s faces,” Odeh’s aide, Anan Maalouf, told Israeli army radio.

“There was no car-ramming attack here. There were no clashes here between the demonstrators and police.”

The prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Israeli ministers accused Israeli Arab MPs, including Odeh, who had gone to negotiate a halt to the demolitions, of incitement.



“I ask everyone, especially members of the Knesset, to be responsible, to stop fanning emotions and inciting violence,” said Netanyahu.

“The Bedouin public is part of us; we want to integrate it into Israeli society and not radicalise it and push it away from the centre of our life experience. The police are operating on the ground with authority and nobody has the right to interfere with their mission.”

Israeli authorities regularly carry out demolitions of Bedouin homes deemed to have been built illegally. However, building permits are nearly impossible to obtain, according to residents and activists, who say Jewish Israelis are given preferential treatment.



The latest demolitions come a week after another high-profile police operation to demolish illegally built homes in the Arab town of Kalansua in central Israel, which had already fanned tensions.