It Happened at the Checkpoint
David Lange
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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.
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David Lange
