Police to probe killing of Palestinian siblings at Qalandiya

The Israel Police said Thursday it would investigate suspicions of unlawful conduct by guards who killed a Palestinian brother and sister who allegedly aimed to carry out a stabbing attack at the Qalandiya crossing outside Jerusalem last week.

The Jerusalem magistrate’s court imposed a gag order on the details of the investigation, as well as the names of the suspects.

Maram Hassan Abu Ismail, 23, and her brother Ibrahim Saleh Taha, 16 — both residents of the central West Bank village of Beit Surrif — were killed by civilian security guards and not Border Police, a preliminary probe determined Sunday.

According to the police account of the incident, Abu Ismail and her brother raised suspicions after approaching the checkpoint in the wrong lane — intended for vehicles rather than pedestrians.

Police said Abu Ismail then hurled a knife at security personnel before she was shot. The knife was recovered at the scene, and a spokeswoman said a second, identical knife was found on Taha’s belt, along with a Leatherman-style multi-tool.

Last week, Israel Police spokeswoman Luba Samri said that Abu Ismail was spotted walking toward guards with her hand concealed inside her purse, and that security personnel fired only after calling on her to stop several times.

Their father, Salah Abu Ismail, 61, from the village of Katana north of Jerusalem, told The Times of Israel in a telephone interview a day after the incident that his daughter had arrived at the crossing to obtain a permit to enter Jerusalem for medical treatment. He insisted that neither of his children was carrying a knife.

The Military Police said Sunday that a Border Police officer guarding the busy West Bank crossing at the time complied with protocol and arrest procedures by firing warning shots into the air as the siblings approached guards at the checkpoint in a suspicious manner. A guard from a privately contracted security firm fired at them moments later.

When police wrongdoing had been ruled out, authority over the investigation was transferred from the Justice Ministry’s Police Internal Investigations Department to the Israel Police.

“The investigation of the shooting at Qalandiya has been handed to the Judea and Samaria District police,” Israel Police spokeswoman Luba Samri said in a statement Thursday.

Police have so far refused to release footage of the incident, classifying it as evidence in an ongoing investigation, despite demands from the Abu Ismail family.

The Defense Ministry often contracts guards from private companies to bolster its security presence at major crossings between Israel and Palestinian-controlled areas of the West Bank.

Professionally subordinate to the police, the private guards don’t usually come into contact with Palestinians crossing through the checkpoints, and are frequently stationed behind concrete barriers to generally reinforce Israeli security.

Qalandiya, and the adjacent crossing between the West Bank and Israel, has been a flashpoint of conflict in the recent wave of violence that has rocked the area since September of last year.

As part of a larger effort to boost Israeli-Palestinian economic ties, the Finance Ministry is planning to improve the much-criticized conditions at crossings where tens of thousands of Palestinians enter Israel daily from the West Bank to work.

In an effort to ease heavy congestion from both pedestrians and cars in the area, Israel on Monday opened a new crossing from Jerusalem into the West Bank at Dahiat el-Barid, just southeast of the capital.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.