Minister admits questions remain, but insists Umm al-Hiran ramming was terror

Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan told the Knesset plenum Wednesday that while there are unanswered questions over last week’s deaths in the Bedouin village of Umm al-Hiran, he remains certain that the incident — in which a local resident drove his car into a crowd of police officers supervising court-ordered home demolitions — was a terror attack.

Yaqoub Mousa Abu Al-Qia’an, 47, a teacher and father of 12, rammed his SUV into a group of officers, killing 1st Sgt. Erez Levi, 34, a father of two from Yavneh, as the group of Border Police officers was overseeing the demolitions in the unrecognized village last Wednesday morning.

“There are still many open questions and I hope that the investigation being carried out by the Police Investigations Unit and the Shin Bet [security services] will provide answers for them,” Erdan said during a vote on whether to launch a parliamentary investigation into the deaths.

Relatives of Abu al-Qia’an insist he was not an assailant, and was not in control of the vehicle when it smashed into police lines as he had been fatally shot.

A police video appears to show officers firing on him before the vehicle accelerated into a group of police officers.

The Knesset rejected the demand for a probe by MK Taleb Abu Arar of the Joint (Arab) List and Meretz MK Tamar Zandberg, with 42 MKs voting against, 22 in favor, and three abstentions.

In the days after the Umm al-Hiran clash there were wide-spread protests and demonstrations by members of Israel’s Arab community against the shooting of Abu al-Qia’an and against alleged discrimination that prevents members of the community obtaining legal building approval, resulting in illegal construction.

According to a report by Channel 10 news on Friday evening, Abu Al-Qia’an’s autopsy indicates that a police bullet hit him in the right knee, smashing it. The bullet wound may have caused Abu Al-Qia’an to lose control of his leg, locking it onto the gas pedal of the car he was driving.

After Levi was run over, several police officers fired at Abu Al-Qia’an. The autopsy showed he was probably killed from a bullet that hit him in the torso, Channel 10 reported Friday. He did not die immediately, however, and was allowed to bleed to death for about 30 minutes. The report said Abu Al-Qia’an’s life may have been saved if he’d received immediate medical attention.

Residents, activists and eyewitnesses had claimed even before the autopsy report that Abu Al-Qia’an’s car only accelerated and hit Levi after police shot at the driver, causing him to lose control.

On Saturday opposition members of the Knesset accused police of a cover-up and called for a state commission of inquiry into the deaths.

A day after the deaths last Wednesday, the Police Internal Investigations Department, a branch of the Justice Ministry, announced that it was opening a preliminary probe into the fatal incident.

Police, as well as Erdan, insist the incident was a terror attack. They have accused Abu Al-Qia’an of jihadist sympathies and called the attack “terrorism” and “murder.”

The Police Internal Investigations Department said the probe will look into why officers initially fired their weapons at the vehicle before it sped up.

A police officer who was at the scene, and who was wounded in the incident, said the cops fired at the vehicle’s wheels — and not in the air, as originally reported — after the driver refused to heed calls to stop.