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Palestinian executed at point-blank range by Israeli border police

The harrowing video capturing the Israeli border police officer shooting a Palestinian in Huwwara has circulated widely on social media and sparked outrage among Palestinians.

A Palestinian man was shot and killed by an Israeli border police officer at point blank range on Friday evening in the northern occupied West Bank town of Huwwara in what is being described as an “execution” on social media.

The execution was captured on video and has circulated widely on social media. The incident occurred shortly before 5pm on Huwwara’s main road — a major throughway that connects dozens of villages with the city of Nablus to the north, and is used by both Palestinians and Israeli settlers. 

Earlier this year, the main road of Huwwara was the site of a days-long Israeli settler rampage targeting Palestinians and their businesses with rocks, guns, axes, and other weapons. 

Eyewitnesses to the shooting told Palestinian reporters that a scuffle ensued following an incident with an Israeli settler who was driving down the road. 

“What happened is that there was a settler car passing by. They started harassing the young [Palestinian man], so he went towards the car and tried to open the door. So the settler cocked his weapon and shot him, and then shot at me in the jeep,” one of the witnesses told a Palestinian TV crew , referring to his SUV, which was allegedly shot at by the settler. 

“Then the police officer came and started to attack him. Instead of moving the settler away, he kept attacking the guys, even though he was injured. The guy was trying to push the officer away and then the officer just started shooting him. He didn’t even give him a chance,” he continued.

The Border Police released an initial statement claiming the Palestinian man was shot after he attempted to stab a border police officer who was stationed in the area. The police then released another statement saying the Palestinian man “tried to enter a vehicle with an Israeli couple [inside].”

“While trying to break through the locked door, one of the occupants — an off-duty IDF officer — shot and apparently wounded the man with his handgun,” Times of Israel quoted the second statement as saying. It was after being shot by the settler that the Palestinian man then allegedly went on to attempt to stab the officer, according to the border police’s account. 

The police also released a photo of the alleged knife, and claimed that one officer was “lightly wounded” in the alleged stabbing and was evacuated for medical treatment, while the second officer, the one who killed the Palestinian man, was also “lightly wounded”. 

No Palestinian eyewitness accounts published in the media made any mention of a knife. 

Around 20 minutes after 5 p.m., the Palestinian Ministry of Health confirmed the man had succumbed to his wounds. Though the MOH did not identify the man, Wafa News Agency identified him as 22-year-old Ammar Mefleh from the Nablus-area village of Osirin. 

‘Execution’

The moment the man was killed was captured in a harrowing video that is being circulated widely on social media, amid outcry from Palestinians, calling it an “execution.”

The video shows him in a scuffle with an armed border police officer, whose assault rifle is strapped around his chest, along with a pistol in a holster around his waist. 

In the midst of the scuffle, the border police officer can be seen attempting to drag the Palestinian man away from a group of other Palestinian men, who are trying to pull the man out of the officer’s grasp. 

The officer puts the man in a headlock, and pulls him away from the two other men. The man then manages to free himself from the headlock, and pushes the officer away, while grabbing onto the officer’s assault rifle. 

In a matter of seconds, as the Palestinian man throws the officer’s assault rifle to the ground, out of both of their grasps, the officer pulls out his pistol and begins firing at the man from point-blank range, who puts his hands up and curls away from the officer. 

The officer fires four shots directly at the man, at point blank range, as shocked bystanders watch on, screaming for help. The officer then picks up his assault rifle, which was thrown a few feet away on the ground. 

A second video from a different angle shows the Palestinian man lying bloodied on the ground as the officer gets on his radio to call for backup. 

According to local reports, Israeli forces surrounded the man’s body for around 20 minutes, preventing Palestinian medics from providing him with first aid, before Israeli troops seized his body and took him to an undisclosed location. 

The man in Huwwara is the ninth Palestinian killed by Israeli forces this week, bringing the total number of Palestinians killed by Israel in 2022 to 214. 

The Israeli military and armed forces operating in the occupied West Bank have operated under open-fire regulations that translate into what rights groups call a shoot-to-kill policy, which they say has been greenlit by Israeli officials.  

Earlier this year the army amended its open fire policy, making it even more lenient for soldiers, allowing for soldier to shoot, even kill, Palestinian stone-throwers with live ammunition, even if they are actively fleeing the situation.  

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We’re about to enter a pointless discussion about whether the Palestinian who was shot did something that made him deserved to be shot. But as this Ha’aretz article points out, eyewitness accounts contradict the official Israeli line (delete Ha’aretz cookies):

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2022-12-02/ty-article/.premium/israel-soldier-wounded-in-suspected-stabbing-attack-in-west-bank-palestinian-shot-dead/00000184-d32c-dc50-adc4-ffee15e30000

In my opinion the real issue is that the Palestinians have no power to demand an independent investigation. Here in the U.S. when people make noise about a police shooting the politicians are afraid because they want to get re-elected, but in an apartheid state like Israel the politicians are not beholden to the underclass in any way, shape or form.

When I was there, in 2016, a woman from ICAHD – Israeli Coalition Against House Demolitions – told us she didn’t use the word “genocide” to describe what was happening. She was waiting for it to actually start. Is it time?
And for “rampage,” I would use the word “pogrom.” [I wrote this before I saw Jasonius Maximus’s comment below.]

Sadly this will come to nothing.

The White House will come out and say the BOTH sides need to show restraint and that they trust Israel, despite it’s repeated and easily disproved lies and planting of knives and fake evidence, to “investigate” it’s own potential crimes, and then finish with the old and reliable classic that “Israel has the right to defend itself”… from innocent unarmed civilians. Or in short… defending the indefensible. US mainstream media will back their play and totally ignore this story, because it’s not an African American being executed by US law enforcement. If it were, there would be wall-to-wall coverage for months, instead it’s just another dead Arab sacrificed on the alter of Israel Apartheid.

Rinse and repeat.

SIDE NOTE: Please stop calling it “Settler rampages”, these are now state-sanctioned and military backed Pogroms within the West Bank, calling them anything else is a disservice.

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Israel: Defying Biden, Netanyahu allows extremist Religious Zionists to rule over West Bank Palestinians (juancole.com) By Juan Cole, 12/03/22, Informed Comment.
The Israeli newspaper Arab 48 reports that that Binyamin Netanyahu’s far right Likud Party concluded a coalition agreement with the extremist right-wing Religious Zionism bloc on Thursday, defying the warnings by the Biden administration that unilateral Israeli steps in the Palestinian West Bank would harm security between Washington & Tel Aviv.”

“The agreement specifies that the Religious Zionism bloc head Bezalel Smotrich would be a minister in the Ministry of Security, responsible for the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), which had until now reported to the Israeli military. Smotrich has said he wants to make Israel a theocratic state, & he or members of his party advocate expulsion of ‘disloyal’ Palestinians & easing the rules of engagement for Israeli army troops so that they can simply shoot down defiant Palestinians throwing stones.

“This step will imperil the relationship of the Netanyahu government with the international community, especially the United States & the European Union, as the Israeli press admitted.

“The US & the EU have extensive contacts with COGAT, especially in Area C, which Israel rules directly. COGAT sets rules for & oversees Palestinians in the West Bank, but also provides administrative support to Israeli squatters on Palestinian land. Somtrich’s Religious Zionism bloc openly despises Palestinians & champions the squatter movement of Israelis who encroach on Palestinian property, encouraging them to expand their squatter-settlements & to steal more Palestinian land. “Smotrich will appoint the new Security Ministry minister in charge of COGAT, & so his party official will now be the point person for the US and the EU in their quest to improve the welfare of the Palestinians, which is guaranteed to lead to explosive tensions. (cont’d)

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“Smotrich’s appointee can be depended on to increase the number of Israeli squatters while strangling planning and construction in Palestinian townships in Area C. He will likely also order the demolition of many Palestinian homes and buildings in Area C on the grounds that they were not properly permitted through the Israeli administration, and will likely refuse to grant Palestinians new building permits. He will also likely begin the process of annexing Israeli squatter settlements to Israel proper. One Israeli general called these administrative changes ‘the most dramatic change in the West Bank since 1967.'”

Video: Netanyahu reaches coalition deal with far-right Religious Zionism party • FRANCE 24 English – YouTube