Public Security Minister Amir Ohana responds for the first time to the police shooting of an unarmed autistic man in Jerusalem’s Old City.
Police said they believed Iyad Halak, a 32-year-old resident of East Jerusalem, had a gun.
“I share in the pain of the Halak family and express sorrow over the death of Iyad, a young man with special needs,” Ohana, whose ministry oversees police, writes on Twitter.
He says the shooting is being probed in accordance with the law and that police will act “to prevent similar incidents” from occurring.
Ohana also calls for people to hold off on making judgments about the officers until the probe is over.
His comments came as around 150 protesters, some pounding drums, gathered in Jerusalem to demonstrate against police violence. “A violent policeman must stay inside,” they chant in Hebrew. At a smaller protest in Tel Aviv, one poster reads “Palestinian lives matter.”
— with AP
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