When Itaf Anabtawi called the police to her home in the Wadi Nisnas neighborhood of Haifa on the morning of March 29th, she never imagined that it would result in the death of her son, Munir.
Itaf had just returned home after a week-long stay in the hospital, and says she was lovingly welcomed back home by her 33-year-old son Munir, who his family said had a mental illness.
“He kept telling me that he loved me and missed me so much while I was gone,” Itaf told Mondoweiss from the living room of her home, surrounded by mourning relatives.
According to Itaf, Munir, who receives routine medical treatment for his illness in the nearby neighborhood of Kiryat Eliezer, seemed like he had not been taking his medication.
When she asked her son about it, he told her that for the past two weeks his prescription had not been filled by the local pharmacy, where he was reportedly told that his medication was not available.
“I decided to call the medical center in Kiryat Eliezer so that they could send us an ambulance for him and take him in for treatment and give him whatever medicines he needed,” Itaf told Mondoweiss. “But I couldn’t find the number for the medical center.”
Itaf said she then decided to call the police instead, as it was the only number that she knew off the top of her head. “I called the police so that they could bring us an ambulance and take Munir to Kiryat Eliezer,” she said.
Itaf told Mondoweiss that she was sitting on her bed when she saw the police cars arrive in front of her house, and that shortly after Munir went outside. When no officers knocked on her door or entered the home, she assumed everything was fine, and that the officers had taken Munir to the hospital.
“Then suddenly I heard three shots go off outside, I had no idea what was going on,” she said, adding that other family members in the house at the time assumed that police had fired shots in the air.
According to Itaf, police officers then entered her home and began interrogating her about Munir, asking her why she had called the police, and why Munir had been wielding a knife.
“I asked him what knife? I didn’t see Munir take any knives. As far as I knew he had no knife,” she said. According to Itaf’s testimony, during the police’s interrogation she was not made aware of the fact that Munir had been shot with live ammunition and was in critical condition.
Munir’s aunt, Siham, told Mondoweiss that she witnessed the shooting. “When the ambulance arrived and took Munir’s body, they told me to follow them to Rambam,” she said, referring to the Rambam Health Care Campus around three kilometers away.
“Shortly after we arrived they pronounced Munir dead,” Siham said. “They didn’t have to shoot him the way they did. It was an execution. They executed him.”
Conflicting accounts
Following the shooting, Israeli police claimed that officers were called to the family home by Itaf, who police say told them that Munir “was behaving wildly while brandishing a knife in their family home,” Haaretz reported, contradicting Itaf’s testimony that she was unaware that her son had a knife, and had called the police in order to take him to the hospital for treatment.
“The police said Munir Anabtawi lunged toward the officers and tried to stab them, wounding one of the officers with a knife. According to the police, they opened fire after the man stabbed the officer,” Haaretz reported, adding that the officer reported that he was attacked from behind.
Video surveillance of the incident released by Israeli police shows Anabtawi engaging in a chase with a police officer, with what appears to be a knife-like object in his hand. The video cuts off after Anabtawi and the officer exit the frame, at which point Munir is still alive.
In a separate video published by Ynet news, security footage from another angle, across the street from the family’s home, shows Anabtawi standing at the entrance to the house. One officer approaches Anabtawi and can be seen engaging with him. The officer then continues to walk past Anabtawi, with his back turned towards him.
Contrary to the officer’s claims that he was attacked from behind, the video seems to show the officer turning back around to face Anabtawi, at which point Anabtawi can be seen lunging towards him, prompting the officer to run away.
A police investigation into the incident found that the police officer fired several shots, two of which hit Anabtawi: one in his chest and one in the torso.
The investigation also accepted the claim by the officer who shot Anabtawi that he was “acting in self defense.”
During questioning by the police misconduct unit, the officer reportedly “expressed regret over the death,” but said he “had no alternative when the man tried to stab him,” Haaretz reported, adding that the officer claimed that the “police call center had not informed the officer that he was being dispatched to an incident involving a man with a mental illness.”
Anabtawi’s family, however, say that the police could have, and should have handled the situation differently.
“The police had records of Munir’s mental illness, and knew that sometimes he could be a danger to himself or others,” Aisha Anabtawi, Munir’s cousin told Mondoweiss, reiterating similar claims made by Itaf, who said that police in the area had dealt with her son before, and were aware of his condition.
Aisha said that even if Munir did attack the police, the officers could have employed a number of other measures to disarm him or immobilize him in a non lethal manner.
“Police shouldn’t be using live fire under any circumstances,” she said. “They could have used rubber bullets, tear gas, anything to stop him. But they did not need to kill him.”
The Mossawa Center, an advocacy group for Palestinian citizens of Israel, released a statement echoing sentiments expressed by Aisha and other members of the Anabtawi family, saying that the police should not have used lethal force when responding to the incident involving Anabtawi.
“It was possible to use tear gas or electric shock, rather than killing him with several bullets to the upper part of his body,” Mossawa said, demanding that the two officers involved be suspended until the investigation is concluded.
The group also criticized the police for allegedly leaking video footage of the incident that only showed the portion of the incident in which Munir appears to be attacking the officer, but not the footage showing the officer’s use of lethal force against him.
Deadly force against Palestinians
The killing of Anabtawi has brought renewed attention to the Israeli police’s use of lethal force against people with disabilities and mental illness, and specifically the excessive force used by Israeli security forces against Palestinians in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory.
Last year Israeli police shot and killed 32-year-old Eyad al-Halaq, a Palestinian man with autism in East Jerusalem as he was on his way to a school for people with disabilities. At the time, police claimed that al-Halaq had a weapon, though it was later found that he was unarmed.
A month later, Israeli security guards shot and killed 26-year-old Mustafa Younis, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, after he stabbed and lightly injured a hospital guard as he was leaving the Sheba Medical Center, where he was undergoing psychiatric evaluation.
In 2019 and 2020 Israeli police also shot and killed two Jewish Israelis who reportedly had a history of mental illness, according to reports from Israeli media.
“My aunt called the police so that they could help her son, and protect him. But instead they shot and killed him,” Aisha told Mondoweiss, adding that she believed that the police should be better trained to handle civilian issues involving mental health.
Aisha added that she believed Munir’s race and ethnicity played a role in his death, saying that “things might have been different if he was Jewish,” echoing sentiments expressed by many Palestinians in Israel and the oPt who say their communities are disproportionately subjected to unwarranted stops and searches by police, and an excessive use of force at the hands of Israeli authorities.
Adalah — The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel has previously condemned Israeli police and security forces for not following appropriate open-fire procedures, specifically when it comes to Palestinian citizens of Israel.
“Absolute immunity for Israeli police officers and systematic closures of Police Investigations Department investigations convey a message that results in very light trigger fingers amongst both police officers and private security guards when it comes to Arabs,” the group said.
“Race is an obvious factor,” Aisha told Mondoweiss. “I do believe that they were quicker to shoot him because he is Arab.”
“As a family, we feel like today it is our son, but tomorrow it could be someone else’s son,” she continued. “We just want to live in safety, and for the people who we ask for help to protect us, not kill us.”
Thomas Dallal contributed to this report from Haifa.
They have killed a pregnant woman, a mentally disturbed woman near the fence, children playing soccer, medics tending the wounded, kids protesting, people walking harmlessly by sniper, the cruelty and viciousness is unbelievable, and disgusting. This poor mother has found out that Israelis whether the IDF, the police, and even the terrorist settlers are not humane, without compassion when it comes to Palestinian lives, and seem programed to kill. To think our tax payer money has been going to train and arm these killers, is unacceptable. Our support and protection for this dislikable country, has resulted in one of the most ruthless nations in that region. We made that monster.
Canadian cops do this too. So do American cops.
Yehuda Atlas, Israeli writer: ‘I’m ashamed of Israel.’
https://bit.ly/3cAHhYo
Here is Jane Jacobs, writing twenty years ago:
Organizations of social workers had been stripped of personnel in the interests of saving money, with the idea that police and firemen could take on social workers’ tasks in case of emergency. They city assumed that police and firemen had been trained in such tasks because disaster planners had ordered it done…. The training of police and firemen to behave like social workers didn’t take because … social work conflicted too much with the police and firemen’s profoundly macho ethos. (Dark Age Ahead, p.85) She is writing about Chicago, but it looks like this “improvement” is ubiquitous.
Guy attacked a cop with a knife. It’s on video. He got shot. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.