Author: Badee Dwaik
Date: March 2016
Photo Credit: Imad Abu Shamsiyya
This is what I documented with my camera from the Human Rights Defenders Group and what my wife Faiza and I saw with our own eyes.
Byline: Badee Dwaik is a coordinator with the Human Rights Defenders activist group in occupied Al-Khalil (Hebron).
Editors Note: please forgive the graphic nature of the photo in this article. This is the unfortunate reality of Palestinians living under occupation in Al-Khalil
(Hebron).
Shortly after arriving in Toronto, Canada for a speaking tour, I opened my phone and watched a video sent to me by Imad Abu Shamesiya. Imad and his wife are both activists with the Human Rights Defenders group in Hebron, where I also live. The video showed the murder in cold blood of a Palestinian by an IOF soldier at a checkpoint in the Tel Rumeida area of Hebron, just meters from Imad’s house. I phoned him and he was very shaken and distressed by what he’d seen.
TBD
Photo Credit: Imad Abu Shamsiyya
Since the Intifada began in October, new IOF tactics have been used against Palestinians in Tel Rumeida that have made life even harder than it already was. The area has been turned into a virtual prison and residents now have numbers, similar to prison inmate numbers. The military checkpoint on Al-Shuhada Street has been rebuilt and expanded, but allows only one lane for entry, and one for exit. Each resident must undergo a thorough inspection while inside a ‘container’, while being viewed through a glass barrier with CCTV and recording devices. Each person attempting to pass the checkpoint must produce an ID card listing their place of residence and the new number. The ID card policy is being used to displace residents and make normal life impossible.
Hadeel Hashlamon: A Beginning For the Executions
A series of brutal executions began with the murder of martyr Hadeel Hashlamon. His murder was documented by a volunteer from Brazil working with Eappi program. The photos were distributed to international
media agencies, and the volunteer recounted the story on his own blog. Since then, the area has witnessed more execution-style murders from Tel-Rumeida through Al-Salemeh neighborhood, to the illegal settlement known as Kiryat Arba. Palestinians were forcibly expelled from the land upon which Kiryat Arba and other settlements in the settlement belt are built.
Imad Recounts the Execution Incident
On Thursday morning at 8:30, I was having coffee with my wife Faiza as usual when I heard several bullet shots near my house in Tel-Rumeida.I left the house quickly with my video camera towards the location of shooting.The first thing I saw was an Israeli soldier on the side of the street pointing his rifle at a young man on the ground who was wearing a black jacket and black trousers. While filming I heard noises from other soldiers so I pointed the camera towards the noise where I saw another young man covered in his blood, with blood coming out of his face. This man was
wearing a grey jacket, while the first guy in black seemed to be still alive as I was filming. In less than a minute, a large group of soldiers and settlers gathered in the location and an Israeli ambulance arrived and gave aid to an Israeli soldier without attending to either of the Palestinian men. The man in the grey jacket didn’t move while the man in black was moving his arms and legs while on the ground. After a solider was put in the ambulance, I heard the soldiers getting ready to shoot while I was still filming, and a soldier stepped towards the man wearing a black jacket, shooting him in the head directly from a very close distance even though he didn’t form any threat to the soldiers or settlers as he was on the ground. The man immediately died and his head was blown up to pieces
visible on the ground. This is what I documented with my camera from the Human Rights Defenders Group and what my wife Faiza and I saw with our own eyes.
The Map of Executions Is Not Random
The locations of these execution-style murders is seen to be in areas around settlers, especially in Hebron; Imad says that 13 murders in cold blood were carried out in Tel-Rumeida and Al-Shuhada street, as well as executions near Al-Ibrahimi mosque and Kiryat Arba.This is in addition to Palestinians murdered in what is known as Gush Etzion north of Hebron, and Beit Enon. This makes it clear that there is a plan to cement the settler reality and escalate strategies against the residents of the land, particularly in the heart of Hebron to link all settlements through the Jewish neighborhood ,using all policies possible of ethnic cleansing and silent displacement, making Hebron a living example of apartheid in the world today.
Watch a video of the murder.