Video Shows ‘Execution’ of Palestinian Youth by Israeli Police

Several days after a senior Israeli official said that terrorists who pose a threat to civilians should be killed immediately, video surfaced showing Israeli police shooting a Palestinian youth in the Arab town of Kufr Kana, in Northern Israel, as he attempted to run away.

The video, taken by a closed-circuit camera, contradicts the police account of the incident, which occurred Friday. They said that 22-year-old Kheir Hamdan attacked the officers with a knife and police were forced to shoot him after firing a warning shot.

However, the video shows Hamdan used an object to bang against the windows of a police van and then fled after officers got out of the vehicle. The police immediately opened fire on Hamdan while he was running away. No warning shot was fired.

In a statement released yesterday, the Adalah Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel called Hamdan’s death an execution and added the video raises suspicions that Hamdan was shot again while he was lying on the ground.

Adallah also placed some of the blame for Hamdan’s death on an Israeli minister who made incendiary remarks about killing Palestinians who pose a threat to Israel.

“Adalah sees a direct connection between the execution of Kheir Hamdan and the statements made last week by Israeli Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovich. The Minister stated that anyone who attacks Israeli Jewish citizens should be killed immediately. In any democratic society that respects the life of its citizens, any government minister that makes statements such as those by Yitzhak Aharonovich should be immediately dismissed,” the statement said.

Hundreds of protestors from Israel’s Arab minority marched in Kufr Kana and the surrounding area of Galilee over the weekend, calling for a thorough investigation into the incident. Protestors placed burning tires and barricades in the street while shops and schools closed.

Almost 30 Palestinians were arrested during a demonstration yesterday.

The killing of Hamdan further inflamed already explosive tensions in the region. This morning, scores of Jewish settlers under police protection forced their way past the gates surrounding the Al-Aqsa mosque, the third holiest site in Islam, and toured the site for 15 minutes, according to a Palestinian guard.

In the past month, violent clashes have occurred around East Jerusalem in response to an increasingly vocal movement by right-wing Israeli politicians and settler activists to expand Jewish access to the area, where Judaism’s holiest site, the Temple Mount, once stood.

Isreali Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised that there would be no changes to the status quo regarding Al-Aqsa. However, the escalating confrontations have increased fears in Israeli society that the controversy could boil over into a third Palestinian uprising.

Several hours after Hamdan’s death, Netanyahu issued a statement in which said he had instructed the interior minister to consider revoking the citizenship of Palestinian protestors.

“We will take determined action against those who throw stones, firebombs and fireworks, and block roads, and against demonstrations that call for our destruction,” his statement said.

The Prime Minister’s threat to revoke the citizenship of protestors is indicative of an increasing intolerance for political dissent within Israel. Last month, the Israeli Parliament, or Knesset, voted overwhelmingly to suspend Palestinian legislator Haneen Zoabi for “incitement.”

Zoabi made several controversial remarks over the summer when Israel launched an invasion of Gaza that killed more than 2,000 Palestinians, most of whom were civilians.

Furthermore, Netanyahu’s deputy interior minister drafted  two bills that would expel Zoabi from the Knesset and strip her of her citizenship for inciting violence and encouraging terrorism.