IDF killer's false claim of self-defence
Reports from Ynet, Palestine Monitor (a round-up of reportage) and The Guardian
Brigade commander, Col. Yisrael Shomer
By Elior Levy, Yoav Zitun, Ynet news
July 12, 2015
The B’Tselem human rights NGO on Sunday released video of an incident in which 17-year-old Palestinian Mohammed Hani al-Kasbah was shot dead by an IDF brigade commander, Colonel Yisrael Shomer.
The video shows al-Kasbah fleeing after throwing a rock at the commander’s jeep. Two soldiers exited the jeep at this point and shot al-Kasbah as his back was to them. Al-Kasbah cannot be seen being hit by the bullet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToBwIpwvm9s
The footage from the CCTV camera acquired by B’Tselem
The incident, during which the jeep’s windshield was broken, occurred on July 3 while the commander and his troops traveled through Al-Ram, near Ramallah. The IDF said that the officer felt his life was in danger after rocks and boulders were thrown and opened fire according to procedure.
Al-Kasbah was evacuated to a Ramallah hospital, where he died. Military police opened an investigation into the death as per IDF protocol regarding incidents in which Palestinians are killed. A preliminary investigation showed that a military vehicle is permitted to use the road even if it is not armored, like the jeep damaged in the incident.
Major General Roni Numa , head of the IDF Central Command, backed the officer and said that a preliminary probe showed he acted as was expected of him. “I completely support the commander and his performance during the incident in which he faced a real threat to his life,” he said.
However, the video captured by a security camera raises the possibility that the death could have been averted.
It shows al-Kasbah standing at the side of the road flanked by two other people. When the jeep arrives, he is seen running towards it and throwing a rock from very close range, shattering the windshield.
Mohammed Hani al-Kasbah
The jeep then stops, after which al-Kasbah runs away with his back to the vehicle. Soldiers rapidly exit the vehicle, one of whom chases al-Kasbah while the other stops and then also breaks into a run. The continuation of the chase and the gunfire are not seen, as they occurred out of the camera frame.
Palestinian witnesses who co-operated with the B’Tselem investigation said the officer shot the Palestinian at a distance of ten meters (around 33 feet). According to the witnesses, the troops left the scene after wounding the teenager.
The video also disproves the story promoted by the Palestinians on the day of the incident, according to which the al-Kasbah was shot while climbing the border fence.
B’Tselem has provided a copy of the video to military police. The organization said that the IDF’s claim that the jeep passengers’ lives were at risk is unreasonable.
“No one disputes that the rock hitting the jeep’s windshield and breaking it endangered its passengers at the time, but the shooting of al-Kasbah in the back occurred after he was fleeing the site and not when there was an immediate danger to life,” said B’Tselem.
Hundreds attend funeral of Palestinian boy shot dead by IDF commander
By Zuzana Brezinová, Palestine Monitor
July 04, 2015
Muhammad Hani al-Kasbah, a 17-year-old Palestinian, was shot dead by IDF commander Israel Shomer, early morning on Friday, after allegedly threatening Shomer’s life by throwing stones at the IDF commander’s vehicle near to Qalandiya checkpoint. General Roni Numa fully backed the brigade commander’s conduct saying, “the troops were in clear and present danger.”
“If a man comes to kill you, kill him first,” wrote Naftali Bennet, Israeli Education Minister, on his Facebook page.
He added, “I fully back the Brigade Commander who acted against a terrorist to protect himself and the lives of his soldiers. This is the conduct that we expect from IDF commanders. The nation of Israel stands behind you.”
According to the Times of Israel, a group of Palestinian youth started throwing stones at the IDF jeep at Qalandiya military checkpoint and damaged its windshield. The Brigade Commander exited the car and fired a warning shot into the air. When the throwing continued, he fired at the offenders injuring one of them.
Martyr’s poster for Mohammed Hani al-Kasbah, 17, killed by the Israeli military Friday morning near Qalandia checkpoint, Qalandia refugee camp. Photo by Allison Deger, Mondoweiss
Palestinian eyewitnesses reported that Muhammad Hani al-Kasbah, a teenage resident of the Qalandiya refugee camp, was shot by the IDF commander twice. One bullet hit his chest, the other his head. He was immediately transported to the Palestinian Medical Complex in Ramallah where he succumbed to his wounds within hours.
Military police opened an investigation into Hani Al-Kasbah’s death shortly after the incident. Meanwhile, the Israeli political and security establishments expressed their full support for Shomer’s handling of the situation.
Israeli Deputy Defence Minister, Eli Ben Dahan, told Haaretz that, “throwing stones is terrorism. Stones kill. The Brigade commander [Shomer] was acting in self-defence.”
Over 500 Palestinians attended Muhammed Hani Al-Kasbah’s funeral on Friday. The funeral procession went from the Palestinian Medical Complex to Al-Kasbah’s house in Qalandiya refugee camp and eventually to Al-Shuhadaa cemetery, where his body was buried alongside his two other brothers who were killed by the Israeli forces in 2001 and 2002 during the Second Intifada.
Rafaat Elian, Fatah’s spokesman in Jerusalem, told Haaretz, “This crime comes near the anniversary of a killing of Muhammad Abu Khdeir, and it shows that the government of Israel continues to draw the Palestinian people to direct confrontation.”
Muhammad Abu Khdeir was a Palestinian teenager from East Jerusalem who was kidnapped and burnt alive a year ago, on July 2, 2014, by Jewish extremists in revenge for the killing of three Israeli teenage settlers.
Nickolav Mladenov, the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, urged all parties to “supersize restraint, maintain calm, and promptly bring the perpetrators of the violence to justice,” Ma’an News Agency reported.
The incident at Qalandyia coincided with the scheduled UN Human Right’s Council (UNHRC) vote on the ‘Gaza report’ that was published in late June and sparked controversy.
UNHRC endorsed the report’s findings by overwhelming majority with only five countries abstaining, among them Kenya, Ethiopia, Macedonia, India and Paraguay, and one vote against coming from the United States, whose representative said that the report was “biased against Israel”.
The resolution adopted during the UNHRC’s session called on both parties concerned to cooperate with the International Criminal Court and stressed the importance of holding those who had violated international humanitarian law during the Gaza War fully accountable through independent justice mechanisms.
Israel’s representative to the UNHRC denounced the resolution as “provocative” and added that it represents “an anti-Israeli manifesto,” Al-Monitor reported.
Video appears to contradict account of Israeli officer who killed Palestinian
Claims that Col Yisrael Shomer was in imminent danger when he shot dead 17-year old Mohammed Kasbeh appear to be contradicted by video footage
By Peter Beaumont in Jerusalem, Guardian
July 13 /14, 2015
Video footage has emerged that appears to show the moments leading up to the fatal shooting of a teenage stone thrower by a senior Israeli army officer, seemingly contradicting the soldier’s account of the killing.
Doubts about the account of Col Yisrael Shomer, a brigade commander in the occupied territories, began to emerge last week in witness accounts and medical evidence collected by the Guardian, Washington Post and human rights groups.
They suggested that 17-year-old Mohammed Kasbeh was shot in the upper body by Shomer as the youth was fleeing, not in the midst of a life-threatening attack.
According to the Times of Israel, following the emergence of the video, Shomer was interviewed under caution by military police who were already investigating the shooting.
According to a Channel 2 TV report, Shomer continued to claim during questioning that he feared he was in imminent danger when his vehicle was attacked and that he operated according to army protocol. He consulted lawyers before the meeting with army investigators.
The footage – acquired by the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem – was recorded by a security camera on a nearby petrol station and, although it does not show the moment of the lethal shooting itself, appears to show the preceding seconds.
In the grainy footage a figure believed to be Kasbeh can be seen among a group of youths running at the Israeli officer’s staff car as it passes and throwing a stone from close quarters.
As the car brakes suddenly to a halt, the youths scatter out of camera shot and two soldiers at first exit the vehicle and give chase.
The video appears to confirm multiple witness accounts supplied to investigating journalists and human rights works workers – including medical evidence – that Kasbeh, the third sibling in his family to be shot dead by the IDF in the past 15 years, was shot in the back.
Witnesses also claimed that after the shooting Shomer approached the dying teenager and kicked or pushed him with his foot. This is not apparent from the angle the video depicts.
It appears to strongly contradict Shomer’s claims that the lives of himself and the soldiers with him in the car were in immediate danger, allowing him to respond with lethal force.
In a statement released on Monday morning, B’Tselem said: “The claim that Kasbeh posed a mortal threat to the soldiers at the time of the shooting, having fled the scene, is unreasonable.
“There is no doubt that the shattering of the jeep’s front window with a stone endangered the passengers when it happened. However, Kasbeh was shot in the back after the fact, when he was already running away and posing no ‘mortal threat’ to the soldiers. Feeling a sense of danger is not enough to justify any action.
“The IDF … also noted that Col Shomer carried out suspect-arrest procedure. Yet this claim contradicts both the first claim, that Kasbeh posed an immediate threat, and the facts of the case: military open-fire regulations permit shooting at the legs of a suspect in order to facilitate his arrest. They do not permit killing him by firing three shots at his upper body.
“The fact that the soldiers drove away without offering the injured youth any medical assistance runs counter to basic human morality. It is also a breach of military regulations, which require soldiers to ensure to the extent possible that persons injured by shooting receive medical assistance.”
The shooting of Kasbeh took place early in the morning on 3 July at the Qalandiya checkpoint between Jerusalem and Ramallah after the teenager threw a stone at a military vehicle, breaking its windscreen but not injuring the occupants.
According to the initial account by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) – supported by several leading politicians who commended Shomer’s action – the soldiers driving the vehicle near the West Bank village of al-Ram, north of Jerusalem, came under attack from a hail of stones and boulders that shattered their windshield during a sustained attack.
The case was unusual in that it involved such a senior officer and because political figures, including the rightwing education minister, Naftali Bennett, rushed to praise Shomer in the hours after the shooting.
The emergence of the video came as it was announced that another Israeli brigade commander, Lt Col Neria Yeshurun, is under investigation by the country’s military advocate general for his actions during last summer’s Gaza war.
Yeshurun – one of five senior officers reportedly under investigation from that conflict, according to Army Radio – ordered the shelling of a Palestinian medical centre allegedly in revenge for the killing of one of his officers by a sniper.
According to the Israeli media, he is expected to be questioned under caution by military police on Monday – becoming the first high-ranking IDF commander to undergo a serious criminal investigation for war crimes allegedly committed during the summer 2014 war.
The Israeli military advocate-general decided to order a full criminal investigation after hearing an audio recording of internal army communication during the incident, which included an address delivered by Yeshurun in which he ordered his soldiers to shell the medical centre saying it was to avenge the dead officer’s death – in breach of the law of armed conflict.
His lawyer has said it was a legitimate military target.