Far-right activists take on Palestinian who filmed accused soldier
Family of serviceman arrested after killing disarmed assailant say authorities ‘stabbed him in the back and abandoned him’
Far-right Israeli activists on Saturday night filed a police complaint against a Palestinian stringer for the human rights group B’Tselem who filmed an IDF soldier shooting dead a Palestinian stabber in Hebron, apparently after the latter no longer constituted a threat.
Attorney Itamar Ben Gvir and Bentzi Gopstein, leader of the anti-Arab Lehava organization, noted that Emad abu-Shamsiyah, the B’Tselem activist, was on site to film the goings-on just minutes after two Palestinians carried out a stabbing attack there.
“It is worth noting that this has not been the first time in which activists of the radical left wing group B’Tselem are in the right place as far as they are concerned, and at the right time as far as they are concerned,” Ben Gvir said. “It would be naïve to think this is a coincidence. It would be appropriate to examine whether there is some coordination between different people carrying out the offenses and found in the same place at precisely the same time.”
B’Tselem said Saturday night that settlers had attacked abu-Shamsiyah’s Hebron home with rocks and chanted “Death to Emad.” IDF soldiers at the scene did not intervene, the group said.
The shooting incident Thursday evening came minutes after an IDF soldier was moderately wounded in a stabbing attack carried out by two Palestinians. One attacker was shot and killed by soldiers as he was carrying out the attack and the other was shot and wounded. In the clip filmed by abu-Shamsiyah, a soldier can be seen approaching the wounded terrorist, who is supine on the ground, and shooting him in the head at point blank range.
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The clip immediately caused an uproar across Israel and beyond, and the soldier was arrested. The country’s leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, issued statements condemning his behavior as a violation of the IDF’s ethical code.
Top Israeli military officials on Saturday night rejected assertions that the soldier was right to shoot the incapacitated Palestinian attack as he feared the man could be wearing an explosives vest, saying an officer had checked the assailant minutes earlier and confirmed that he was not.
Over the weekend, left-wing activists found the soldier’s Facebook page and published his personal details online. According to Israel Radio, the private phone number of the soldier’s father has since been posted on websites affiliated with Hamas.
On Saturday evening, the soldier’s sister, speaking on behalf of the family, said the State of Israel “stabbed him in the back and abandoned him.” She said the clip of the incident “presents a one-sided version of events, and from that moment on, we hear the heads of the country judging him, saying his verdict and all that’s left is to execute him, without even letting him defend himself.”
Israel Police were examining a complaint by the soldier’s family saying that they received death threats on the phone. Reports quoted the family as saying a man speaking in an Arabic accent called the family’s home on Saturday and threatened: “You’re next.”
On Saturday evening, dozens of people protested outside the Tzrifin army base where the soldier is under arrest, and called for his release. Among the protesters were combat soldiers and officers in mandatory and reserve service, as well as the mothers of combat soldiers in mandatory service, Israel Radio reported.
