Anti-Israel sites and social media accounts have reported that the IDF killed palestinian Arab Sameer Aslan during a raid in the Qalandiya refugee camp. But as usual, there are contradictory versions, which is always a good indication they are lying.
Al Jizz reported that he was shot in the chest “while standing with other family members on the roof of their home watching the raid”, which was 10 minutes after his 17-year-old son was arrested:
The Israeli army has killed a Palestinian man as he was standing on the roof of his home during a raid on a refugee camp in occupied East Jerusalem, according to Palestinian officials.
Sameer Aslan, 41, was pronounced dead on Thursday at dawn by the Palestinian Ministry of Health, which said he was shot in the chest in the Qalandiya refugee camp.
Officials told Al Jazeera that Aslan, a father of eight, was shot by an Israeli sniper while standing with other family members on the roof of their home watching the raid.
He was killed about 10 minutes after his 17-year-old son, Ramzi, was arrested by the Israeli army from their home.
Following the arrest, “the whole family went up to the roof to see what was happening when they heard loud screams and that one of their other sons was injured”, Zakariya Fayyaleh, an official with the Palestinian Authority, which runs the camp, told Al Jazeera.
“Sameer, his wife, three of the daughters and several of the sons were on the roof when an Israeli sniper fired at the family and shot Sameer directly in the chest,” he continued.
“His sons carried him down and tried to take him to the hospital. A large army force stopped them and put Sameer down on the ground. They left him bleeding on the ground for a while before they let us take him again – he passed away upon arrival at the hospital,” continued Fayyaleh.
It seems odd he would be casually watching events from the roof just 10 minutes after his son was arrested. But not as odd as Albawaba news‘ version:
According to sources, Israeli forces raided Aslan’s house to arrest his son, Ramzi, and on their way, the father went to the balcony to say goodbye to his son when he received a bullet to the chest, near the heart.
His son is being arrested and he is on the balcony saying goodbye?
WAFA news agency have an entire scene play out, which explains why he was supposedly on the roof saying goodbye:
“Ya Yaba, join me,” shouted Ramzi, 17, calling his father, Samir Aslan, begging him to save him from the hands of the Israeli occupation soldiers who arrested him at dawn today, Thursday, from his family’s home in Qalandia camp, north of Jerusalem.
Samir (41 years old) ran out of his house on the third floor of a four-storey building. When he reached the entrance of the building, the soldiers aimed their weapons at him and prevented him from leaving, forcing him to return home.
Samir could not bear the sight of his eldest son arrested and bound. He climbed to the roof of the house in order to observe what the soldiers were doing with his son and to check on him. As soon as he climbed the first two steps of a wooden ladder parked on a wall above the roof of the house, a sniper hit him with a fatal bullet from a residential building located directly behind his house.
The sniper killed him without any reason. The father went out to the roof of the house, fearing and worrying about his eldest son, but the bullets that penetrated his chest caused him to hit the ground, before the wooden ladder fell on him, and he started screaming, until his wife, brother, and sister-in-law reached him, and they began calling for an ambulance… first aid”.
“Don’t call out…you have been martyred!” These are Samir’s last words, after which he uttered the two testimonies three times before closing his eyes.
Notice how in this version, he was alone on the roof, and his wife, brother and sister-in-law came later after he was shot. This contradicts the Al Jizz version in which he was supposedly on the roof watching events with his wife, three of the daughters and several of the sons.
And apparently, WAFA news have a hard time following their own lies; another report of theirs has him shot in the chest while he trying to free his son from the soldiers during his arrest, rather than watching from the roof.
But the contradictory versions do not stop there.
The long-winded WAFA version above had his last words as “Don’t call out…you have been martyred!”, followed by him uttering “the two testimonies three times before closing his eyes.” Not according to another Israel-hater, though:
Meanwhile Al Qastal News have tweeted video of the IDF supposedly gunning him down. At least that is what they write. But the video itself shows nothing of the kind!
Meanwhile, other haters refer to the 41-year-old man as a “youth” and “young man”:
So what did happen? According to the IDF:
“During the activity [to arrest wanted palestinian Arabs and seize illegal firearms], suspects hurled stones and cinder blocks from rooftops at the forces in a way that endangered the lives of the troops, who responded with riot dispersal means and live fire,” adding that one suspect was hit.
Given all of these contradictions in the palestinian Arab version, I think the IDF version is almost certainly accurate.
