- 14 juni 2010
Teenager shot by settler forced to pay fine 29 oct 2012, 11:15 , Respect -
Maria 29 oct 2012, 11:15 , Respect -
Maria 16 juni 2010
Report: Israel Police shot Palestinian instead of arresting him
East Jerusalem man who ran over Border Police officers was reportedly shot twice in the face from close range while lying on the ground.
A motorist from East Jerusalem who ran over and wounded several Border Police officers Friday was shot twice in the face from close range while still lying on the ground, eyewitnesses said. Neighborhood witnesses said the fatal shots were fired once the officers no longer had reason to fear that their lives were in danger, and could have easily arrested the suspect.
Witnesses in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Wadi Joz told Haaretz that the motorist, Ziad Jilani, suddenly swerved his car and hit the group of officers walking further up the road. They said, however, that they believed the collision was an accident, and not committed intentionally as initially reported.
Jilani, 39, was self-employed and the father of three daughters. His wife is a U.S. citizen, and he himself lived for an extended period in both the U.S. and Switzerland.
Around 2 P.M. Friday, Jilani was driving his van home from prayers in nearby Shoafat. Several minutes before the incident, Border Police officers were seen riding horses toward the Wadi Joz industrial area. A number of other officers were deployed around the area, and several started making their way toward Jerusalem's Old City. Jilani's car was traveling in tightly packed, slow-moving traffic with no oncoming vehicles.
The neighborhood soon filled up with people returning from Friday prayers, and some stores were already being opened. Two eyewitnesses said stones were hurled at the officers, one of which struck Jilani's car. He then swerved his car left, they said, veering from its lane and striking the group of policemen.
Shots were heard immediately, another witness told Haaretz, and one of the officers fell to the ground. Two policemen tended to him until an ambulance arrived, and the other officers got in their vehicles and began pursuing Jilani, who had continued driving after the collision, and shooting at his car.
Another witness said that he had not seen stones thrown, but rather believed Jilani had tried to overtake the vehicles in front of him. Several other witnesses said the windshield of Jilani's car had been shattered, but were unsure if the damage had been caused by a bullet or a stone.
Jilani turned his vehicle into a dead-end alley where his uncle lives, and the officers continued pursuing his vehicle and shooting.
A mother and her adult daughter present at the scene saw the man emerge from his car. The daughter told Haaretz, "I was further down the alley, and I heard shots ... I saw a car driving, followed by many police officers. The car stopped right next to me, and someone got out. I saw him next to the car door, and he looked at me with an expression I didn't really understand, but I will never forget.
"There was shooting and I started to scream," the woman continued. "My mother ran toward me and threw me to the ground. Everything happened within seconds. I realized he wasn't walking normally, and saw the shattered windshield of the car, maybe from a stone. He ran until he fell over," she said.
Ten meters separated the parked car and the spot where Jilani fell to the ground.
"He got out of the car, and they came after him. Not just one of them shot, but many of them, and then they started yelling in Hebrew for people to go back into their homes," the daughter said.
Both women said they saw Jilani lying on his stomach with several officers gathered around him, and the daughter said one of the policemen kicked him in the head. The mother said she saw an officer point his rifle extremely close to Jilani's head, and when she put her head down to the asphalt she heard a shot ring out.
A Border Police spokesman, Chief Superintendent Moshe Pinchi, did not comment on the questions posed to him by Haaretz. In his response, Pinchi wrote, "Individuals have been killed and dozens wounded in vehicle attacks in Jerusalem between 2008 and 2009 ... All of those attacks were committed by East Jerusalem residents, and in each case those close to the perpetrators described the incidents as 'accidents.'
"Four Border Police officers were wounded in this last incident in Wadi Joz and hospitalized for treatment, and only by a miracle were fatalities avoided," he said.
23 juni 2010
To neutralize
Unlike in the case of their Jewish counterparts, when it comes to offending Arab drivers, the Israeli Border Police would rather kill than arrest.
If a policeman had witnessed the hit-and-run accident that took the life of cyclist Shneor Cheshin on Friday, would he have killed the driver after catching him? Of course not. But on Friday, June 11, in broad daylight in the middle of a residential neighborhood, a policeman killed a driver who ran into - but did not kill - pedestrians: police officers on foot.
The killing was buried immediately in the giant cemetery called "of no interest to the Israeli public." Why? Because all this happened in a Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem (Wadi Joz ), and because the driver's name was Ziad Jilani.
Until his case is decided in court, Tal Mor is rightfully deemed "the suspect in Cheshin's killing." But Jilani was treated to a lightning trial: He was convicted on the spot of intending to carry out a terror attack because the people hurt by his car were Israeli policemen. They chased him as one chases someone defined as a terrorist, while shooting (first in the air, but then in a way that endangered passersby. In fact, a 5-year-old girl sitting in a parked car was injured ).
And then, when he was lying on the ground shot, according to witnesses, he also took two bullets to the head. That is, between the second the man was indicted for intending to run people over in a terror attack, and until the moment a gun was allegedly pressed right up to his head and the trigger pulled, the Border Police on the scene were victims, witnesses, prosecutors, judges and executioners.
The Border Police spokesperson wrote to Haaretz: "Citizens have been killed and dozens injured by vehicle terror attacks that occurred in Jerusalem from 2008 to 2009. The lives of other innocent citizens were saved thanks to the intervention of police, Border Police combatants and civilians who neutralized the perpetrators and prevented more killing. The latest running-over incident ... only by a miracle ended without combatant fatalities. In this case as well, the perpetrator was neutralized after he tried to flee the scene against the law."
When Jilani fled his vehicle into a dead-end alley, did he endanger the lives of civilians? Did the police fear that the Palestinian (after all, they were certain he was not Jewish ) would harm Palestinians in the heart of that Palestinian neighborhood, so they had to "neutralize" him? Who knows, maybe so. Perhaps that was the reason they fired at him when he got out of his car and they chased him, lest he pull a pistol or an assault rifle out of his pants and attack innocent passersby, Palestinians like him.
Down the alley, near his uncle's house, there were no police at the time who could be endangered by a potential weapon or an explosives belt. When he was already lying prone on the ground, apparently injured in his leg, back and arm, were the approaching police still afraid he would draw a rifle and kill them? So that's why they did not bother handcuffing him?
They call the Border Police "combatants," going around the streets of East Jerusalem with their long rifles and helmets. Against whom and why are they doing combat there, between a butcher shop, two vegetable stores, a laundry, a car-repair shop and a sidewalk that serves as a playground?
Israeli police, whatever they are called, are sent to the streets of East Jerusalem as enforcers of government and municipal policy. It is that same policy of intentional discrimination that has brought 65 percent of the 303,429 Palestinians living in East Jerusalem below the poverty line (double the number of poor Jews in the city ) and 74 percent of Palestinian children below that line.
The police serve the government that since 1967 has expropriated 24,000 dunams (8,000 acres ) of land from Palestinians and over the years has built more than 50,000 housing units on it - for Jews only. Police accompany the bulldozers that demolish homes built, for lack of choice, without permits.
It should come as no shock that police feel hostility toward them in the occupied city. Perhaps that is the reason they did not stop and think: It might have been a brake malfunction, the man might have lost his senses or not have been aware of police and border police procedures for opening fire. The reasons Jilani ran into the police could have been brought to light in court.
But they chose, allegedly, to return him to his family with his face imploded after being hit by two bullets, apparently fired into his right cheek. The bullets did not even have a place to come out because, lying there, his left cheek was on the asphalt. Neutralize means eliminate.
http://fwd4.me/0iJL 29 oct 2012, 11:15 , Respect -
Maria 29 oct 2012, 11:15 , Respect -
Maria 29 oct 2012, 11:16 , Respect -
Maria 29 oct 2012, 11:16 , Respect -
Maria 14 juli 2010
IDF shelling kills Palestinian woman in Gaza
IDF spokesperson says forces fired at Palestinians suspected of mounting an attack near the border between Gaza and Israel.
Israeli army shelling killed a Palestinian woman and wounded two of her relatives in the central Gaza Strip on Tuesday, hospital officials said.
Asked about the incident in the village of Johar a-Deek, which is near Gaza's border with Israel, a military spokeswoman said forces opened fire at Palestinians suspected of mounting an attack. She did not immediately elaborate.
Since Israel's Gaza offensive 18 months ago, cross-border violence has largely abated. But there are occasional rocket and mortar salvoes by Palestinians, usually claimed by militant groups unaligned with the dominant Islamist Hamas movement.
Israeli army fires shell at Gaza camp, killing one: Medics
GAZA CITY: The Israeli army fired at least one shell into the Al-Bureij neighbourhood in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, killing a woman and wounding five people, Palestinian medics have said.
Medics said the woman was killed when the shell hit her house yesterday. Five others were wounded were taken to a nearby hospital.
An Israeli military spokeswoman confirmed the incident, saying that "suspects were identified coming close to the (border) fence and a force nearby opened fire."
She had no further details, but the Ynet website reported that Israeli forces had targeted a group of militants trying to fire mortars into Israel.
Israel launched a devastating assault on the Palestinian enclave in December 2008 aimed at halting rocket fire from the besieged coastal Strip.
Some 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed in the 22-day war.
After a year of quiet following the assault, Gaza militants have stepped up the cross-border rocket fire, with more than 60 rockets and mortar rounds striking Israel since January, the military says.
http://fwd4.me/0iJZ 29 oct 2012, 11:16 , Respect -
Maria 29 oct 2012, 11:16 , Respect -
Maria 16 juli 2010
Mother of five killed by Israeli artillery fire close to Gaza buffer zone
Nasser Abu Said outside the shrapnel-riddled home where wife Ne'ema was killed by Israeli artillery Nasser Abu Said outside the shrapnel-riddled home where his wife, Ne'ema, was killed byIsraeli artillery
A mother of five was killed by Israeli artillery fire when she went to fetch her two-year-old son from outside her village home close to the "buffer zone" created by Israel along its border with Gaza.
Three of her relatives were wounded in the shelling earlier this week, but Red Crescent ambulances were not permitted to reach the family for several hours.
According to the woman's husband, Nasser Abu Said, 37, the attack began without warning at about 8.30pm on Tuesday with two shells being fired as the family of 17 sat outside their house in the village of Johar a-Deek. Apart from Nasser and his 65-year-old father, the entire group was women and children.
"It was completely quiet, there were no rockets being fired or we wouldn't have been sitting outside," he said, referring to Qassam missiles launched by militants into Israel.
His sister and his brother's wife were injured by shrapnel. The family moved indoors and called an ambulance. "About 10 minutes later the ambulance called back to say the Israelis had refused them permission to come to the house," said Nasser.
His wife Ne'ema, 33, soon realised their youngest son, Jaber, was not among the children she was attempting to calm down, and was probably asleep on a mattress outside that he often shared with his grandfather.
As she went to fetch the toddler, another shell landed. "I called to my wife three times," said Nasser, who realised his father had also been badly injured in his leg and stomach. "I could hear small noises coming from her. I knew she was dying."
Via Palestinian co-ordinators, the IDF told the family that anyone going outside the house would be shot dead. Nasser began to tend to his injured father, knowing he could not reach his dying wife.
"I was holding myself in, especially in front of the children," he said. The children were crying hysterically and some had wet themselves, he added.
After two hours, an ambulance was allowed to reach the family. The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), which investigated the incident, said Ne'ema and her wounded relatives were taken to al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al-Balah, where it was confirmed she had died from shrapnel wounds.
The Israeli Defence Force (IDF) said it had identified a number of suspects close to the border. "An IDF force fired at the suspects and identified hitting them," it said. The incident was being investigated, it added, but declined to say why ambulances had not been allowed to reach the family.
Since the three-week war in Gaza that began in December 2008, the IDF has continued to fire on Palestinians it suspects of launching rockets at Israeli civilians or attempting to attack Israeli forces. It created a 300m-wide buffer zone on Palestinian farmland adjacent to the border with Israel and warned it would shoot anyone seen within the forbidden area.
The Abu Saids say their land is not used by militants to fire rockets as it is open ground in full view of an Israeli watchtower at the border 400m away.
In the first five months of this year, 22 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces in the buffer zone, according to the PCHR. The IDF says one soldier and a Thai farmworker were killed and two soldiers lightly wounded in militant attacks in the first half of this year.
Palestinians have been unable to harvest their crops in the zone, which has swallowed about 30% of Gaza's arable farmland. The Abu Said family have lived in the area for 40 years, but have had to abandon the part of their land inside the zone. "Everyone is afraid to come to this house," said Nasser.
The house, isolated down a rutted track, was riddled with shrapnel damage from Tuesday's shelling, and dried blood still lay in the sand where Ne'ema had been killed.
The PCHR condemned the shelling which, it said, "constitutes the highest degree of disregard for Palestinian civilians' lives". This was not an isolated incident but "part of a series of continuous crimes committed by the [Israeli military]".
29 oct 2012, 11:16 , Respect -
Maria 29 oct 2012, 11:16 , Respect -
Maria 29 oct 2012, 11:16 , Respect -
Maria 29 oct 2012, 11:16 , Respect -
Maria 21 juli 2010
2 Palestinians killed as IDF clashes with militants near Gaza border
Top Islamic Jihad militant killed as Israeli tanks fire at militants after receiving reports they intended to attack a nearby IDF unit.
Israel Defense Forces troop fired at suspected militants that had approached Gaza's northern border with Israel, Israel Radio reported on Wednesday, with two suspected militants reportedly killed in the incident.
According to Palestinian sources, one militant was killed on the spot, while the second fatality succumbed to his wounds several hours after the incident.
Six militants remained hospitalized, the sources reported.
According to initial reports, Israeli tanks targeted a suspected militant squad after receiving reports that a squad near the northern Strip town of Beit Hanoun had intended to fire an anti-tank missile toward another IDF unit.
An Israeli military spokeswoman said soldiers opened fire on suspects approaching a border fence but had no further comment. Palestinian medical workers claimed 7 people were wounded, including a 10-year-old girl. No other details were immediately released.
The militant killed in the incident was reportedly a central Islamic Jihad militant.
Since Israel's Gaza offensive 18 months ago, cross-border violence has largely abated.
But there are occasional rocket and mortar salvoes by Palestinians, usually claimed by militant groups unaligned with the dominant Islamist Hamas movement.
Last week, hospital officials said that an IDF shelling killed a Palestinian woman and wounded two of her relatives in the central Gaza Strip.
Asked about the incident in the village of Johar a-Deek, which is near Gaza's border with Israel, the IDF Spokesperson's Office confirmed that soldiers had opened fire on two suspicious figures who were seen approaching the border fence.