It Happened at the Checkpoint
More Israeli checkpoint brutality yesterday with the IDF killing a 16-year-old palestinian.
The poor youth was obviously so driven to despair by his demeaning treatment at the checkpoint, that he decided to blow himself up. And the IDF wouldn’t even grant him that right.
The Israel Defense Forces killed an armed Palestinian man at the Hawara checkpoint in the West Bank city of Nablus Monday afternoon.
The IDF said that a Palestinian man arrived at a checkpoint acting suspiciously while pacing back and forth. The force manning the checkpoint called on him to identify himself and noted that he was handling an object that appeared to be an explosives belt secured to his body.
A witness, taxi driver Mohammed Mustafa, told The Associated Press “they asked him to lift up his shirt and raise his arms and then they shot him.”
The troops then fired at the man when he lowered his hands suddenly toward the explosives.
An IDF investigation revealed that the man had been carrying three pipe bombs. The IDF spokeswoman said army sappers later detonated the pipe bombs at the scene in a controlled explosion.
A Palestinian security source in Nablus said the dead individual was a 16-year-old youth from the village of Beit Furik near the city. Other details were not immediately available.
Corporal Michal Ya’akov of the military police told Haaretz that “the entire event lasted maybe 30 seconds. I was a half a meter away from him [the attacker] and I asked him to pass through the metal detector. When he went through, the apparatus beeped. I asked him to raise his arms and then I saw under his shirt the explosives, secured to his pants. I yelled ‘explosives in the checkpoint’ and the entire team reacted perfectly. We told him to lie on the ground so that the explosion will go down into the ground, but he refused. Then I saw that he was lowering his arms suddenly and the checkpoint commander fired several shots at him. I suppose he was trying to detonate the explosives and blow himself up.”
Ya’akov added that there was no prior intelligence regarding a possible suicide bomber making his way toward Israel.
Another IDF soldier involved in the incident told reporters that it was clear to her that the man was intending to attack the checkpoint.
“There were no other Palestinians in the area when he tried to blow himself up, from his behavior it appeared as if he was not intending to get into Israel but wanted to blow himself up at the checkpoint and attack the soldiers there,” she said in a telephone interview.
IDF troops later entered the village to search for the house of the attacker’s family, local residents said.
Israel maintains it needs the checkpoints in order to stop Palestinian attackers.
As if.
Update: The above post was clearly my way of using sarcasm to prove a point. But believe it or not, it is not far from the way the palestinians have portrayed this incident. Consider the Ma’an News report of the incident:
Israeli forces shot dead a young Palestinian man at the Hawwara checkpoint, south of Nablus on Monday evening.
Israeli military sources said the young man refused to comply with soldiers who ordered him to stop and raise his hands. They then opened fire on him, thinking he was wearing an explosive belt.
Eyewitnesses told Ma’an’s Nablus correspondent that Israeli soldiers manning the checkpoint fired a volley of six shots at the young man, who appeared to be around 16 years of age, hitting him several times in the back.
They then completely closed the checkpoint preventing anyone from passing through.
According to the eyewitnesses, the Israeli soldiers at the checkpoint had asked the young man to lift up his shirt and when he refused they immediately opened fire on him.
Notice how they omit the minor detail of him actually carrying pipe bombs that he was about to detonate.
Update: Here’s the Ramattan News report of the incident:
Israeli soldiers on Monday killed a Palestinian teenager on Monday night in Nablus, north of the West Bank.
Palestinian medics said that Nael Hini, 16, was killed by Israeli soldiers stationed at a checkpoint at the entrance of Howara villege, south of Nablus.
Witnesses said that the Israeli soldiers opened fire at the boy and prevented paramedics from evacuating him.
Paramedics said that the 16-year-old boy bled several hours to death.
Israeli military sources affirmed that the soldiers killed a suspected one near the checkpoint.
And Wafa‘s:
A citizen who was shot and wounded on Monday by an Israeli gunfire on Hawwara military checkpoint in the West Bank city of south Nablus died, medical sources said and witnesses said.
The sources added that the citizen who has not identified yet was shot and left bleeding until he pronounced his death at the checkpoint.
Witnesses said that the Israeli soldiers at the checkpoint prevented an ambulance to evacuate him to hospital; instead they closed the checkpoint and hurled gas and sonic grenades towards the citizens.
If you didn’t before, maybe you now understand why you can’t trust palestinian reports.
About the Author
An Australian immigrant to Israel, Aussie Dave has been blogging since early 2003.Filed Under: General
Superb post there.
That is incredibly illustrative of how biased most media outlets can be. I don’t know how any competent reporter could justify leaving out a mere MENTION of the pipe bomb and the fact the boy didn’t obey the soldiers.
This story has no leverage for the palestinians.
And, it shows the IDF has their soldiers fully trained. So that no one blasts off a gun without knowing that the supervisors will expect a full report.
It also, for those involved, must have felt like “slow motion.” In that the Israeli troops identified, correctly, a suicide bomber on a mission. What you don’t know is if the kid was also retarded.
And, also, that things happening in real time aren’t like it is when they’re shown in the movies.
Here? There was a little hesitation. And, then? Well-trained, the suicide mishiganah was shot.
This is still a VEXING PROBLEM.
Go to war? For this? Demonstrate what happens “after.” Because tourism would begin to slide in a circle, around the drain.
And, afterward? Abbas gets to collect gaza; where Israelis have to be sacrificed, cleaning up that pig sty. Sure, the Eygptians are involved in “talk.” They get a lot of money in aid. They talk up a whole bill of goods.
On the positive side, here? The suicide bomber didn’t detonate. And, the report, all the way up the chain of command, is good for the soldiers. I don’t call this a “thankless job.”
But I do notice, where arabs are concerned there’s been no change.
You could also say the same for Lebanon. A doper’s capitol. More like Amsterdam, than paris.
And, with Nasrallah able to send goons into the street; while there, the army did next to nothing.
I did notice (and it remains basically unreported). that Nasrallah tried to go after the Druze. Up in the hills surrounding Beirut.) And, he didn’t win a thing. Didn’t succeed in bringing down one village.
All you have is the press. Not able to get a handle on anything that goes on. While the profession slides into the mud. And, the Internet, with amateurs, yet; can keep you up to date, better than the professionals. It’s a lesson worth absorbing.
By the way, the IDF is at the checkpoints doing this business every single day. And, they’re good at it! My compliments to the soldiers.
Concerning the Ma’an News report:
“Israeli military sources said the young man refused to comply with soldiers who ordered him to stop and raise his hands. They then opened fire on him, thinking he was wearing an explosive belt. (…)
According to the eyewitnesses, the Israeli soldiers at the checkpoint had asked the young man to lift up his shirt and when he refused they immediately opened fire on him.”
There are two different stories in the same article here.
1. the man was stopped and raised his hand and got shot.
2 the man was asked to lift his shirt, refused and got shot.
In your first rendition, he also refused, according to the report.
In any case, the difference can be attributed to eyewitnesses who were able to hear and see what was going on versus others who only saw.
Makes no difference.
Tuesday. And that didn’t take long. There’s an UPDATE at the Jerusalem Post. The suicide dope wasn’t 16 !! He was 20. And, you can see the 4 pipe bombs, displayed. Since he was dead, before he could push his buttons.
Compliments to the troops! When they take aim, and fire, they end the problem. And, that takes lots of practice. Lots of training. The IDF is the real deal !
And, the arabs? They’ll keep presenting you with their VEXING problem. No. They’re not looking for war! Heck, they’ve never really seen modern warfare, at all.
What the arabs want? Gosh, their philosophy is easy to spot. They’re not going to respond by wearing uniforms, and providing war zones! What they want is to bankrupt Israel. Sometimes, they try this by bribing the europeans to resist trade. And, at other times? They’ve got this idea that lobbing kassams will provoke Ehud Barak to commit a big ground operation. Where Israeli soldiers die. And, then? No matter what, President Bush, or his successor(s), will always demand Israel return the property.
Maybe, you could hang a sign on gaza? Lost and Found? Okay. Lost. And, looking?
Don’t bite the arab temptations. They’re out there to make you make a mistake. When you don’t have to.
By the way, around the thugs? Most arabs just hide. And, lie. Most don’t want to get selected by hamas, either. They just want to sell their marijuana; and tea drinks. Where men collect all day long to schmooze. Oh, and hold hands! Did you notice even Bush knows how to hold an arab’s hand. How many envelopes full of money did “that” take?
[...] the fact that a terrorist group has admitted that the palestinian man killed at Hawara checkpoint on Monday afternoon was intending to blow the soldiers to kingdom come, his parents have a [...]