Hadil al-Hashlamun

September 22, 2015: Hadil al-Hashlamun, 18, was killed by Israeli soldiers in Hebron, in the southern part of the West Bank.

The Israeli military initially claimed the woman was shot in her legs, and later said she is in a critical condition.

She was moved to Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem where she died of her wounds. According to her family Hadeel was a first-year student at the Hebron University.

The Palestinian government issued a statement condemning the killing of Hadeel and demanded and international and independent investigation into the incident.

Al-Hashlamoun was shot dead at a checkpoint in Hebron city; pictures of the circumstances that led to her fatal shooting, in addition to eyewitness account collected by Amnesty show that the young woman posed no threat to the soldiers, who had no legal justification to use deadly force. The army claimed she carried a knife.

Amnesty International said: “The killing is the latest in a long time of unlawful killings carries out by the Israeli forces in the West Bank, with near total impunity’.

|Evidence indicates West Bank killing was extrajudicial execution|

Amnesty added the young woman posed no threat to the lives of the soldiers, and that the army had no justification for the use of lethal force, especially since she froze when the soldiers pointed their guns at her.

|B’TSelem Investigation: No Justification for Multiple Bullets that Killed Hadil al-Hashlamun in Hebron|

It also stated that even if the young woman had a knife, as the army claims, the soldiers, who are wearing body armors, and heavily equipped with advanced weapons, could have could have controlled the situation and arrested her without threatening her life.

“Even if al-Hashlamoun did have a knife, Israeli soldiers, who are protected with body armor and heavily equipped with advanced weapons, could have controlled the situation and arrested her without threatening her life,” Amnesty said.

It added that after al-Hashlamoun was shot the first time, the soldiers shot her multiple times, as she was lying on the ground, an issue that indicates her killing was an extrajudicial execution.

The Israeli Information Center For Human Rights In The Occupied Territories (B’Tselem) said:

“The military’s account of the incident, as reported in the media, is that “a metal detector went off when the Palestinian woman walked through the checkpoint. The soldiers called on her to stop and fired a few warning rounds toward the ground after she continued”. Then, the soldiers claim, “she pulled out a knife, and that’s when they fired shots at her legs. The soldiers said they opened fire for a second time after the woman tried again to raise the knife”.

B’Tselem’s investigation raises doubts as to the veracity of this description.

According to B’Tselem’s information, al-Hashlamun approached the checkpoint from the direction of the neighborhood of Bab a-Zawiya in H1.

She was wearing a Niqab, which covers the entire body, and holding a concealed knife. She aroused suspicion among the soldiers, and they told her to open her purse. For an unknown reason, al-Hashlamun froze and did not respond to their calls.

One soldier shot at the ground, next to her. Fawaz Abu ‘Easheh, a resident of the neighborhood of Tel Rumaidah, who arrived at the scene, thought the young woman did not understand the soldiers’ instructions and tried to help her leave. As she was leaving the checkpoint, with a 1.2 meter metal barrier between her and the soldiers, a soldier called her to stop as he was shooting at the ground next to her, and then at her leg. According to Abu ‘Easheh’s testimony Al-Hashlamum fell, and as she was falling, her right hand was revealed to be holding a knife.

She did not get up, but the soldier shot her again, in the other leg, and seconds later in the torso. Some of the incident was caught on camera by an international volunteer who was at the scene.

The circumstances of the incident indicate that the soldiers at the checkpoint acted disproportionately. They did not try to subdue al-Hashlamun and take her into custody without resorting to live fire.

The claim that al-Hashlamun tried to stab soldiers, repeated by the media, cannot be reconciled with the fact that there was a metal barrier between her and the soldiers at the time of the shooting.

Furthermore, the soldier who opened fire continued shooting after she had been hit in the legs and no longer posed a danger. The military has video documentation of the incident from the checkpoint’s security cameras and should publish it in if it stands behind the soldiers’ version of events.

The military command’s knee jerk defense of the soldiers, as expressed in the military’s response to the incident, sends soldiers on the ground a clear message that when it comes to using force, including lethal force, against Palestinian civilians – there are very little limitations.

Hadeel was from Hebron, in the southern part of the occupied West Bank. Source: IMEMC, Amnesty, B’Tselem

 

Dia’ Talahma

DiaTalahma


September 22, 2015: 
Dia’ Abdul-Halim Mahmoud Talahma, 26, was killed by Israeli soldiers after he reportedly tried to throw a grenade on the Combat Engineers Battalion. Red Crescent medics rushed to the scene, but the Israeli soldiers sealed the area and prevented them from reaching him. Dia’ was from Doura town near Hebron. Source: IMEMC

Reham Dawabsha

September 7th, 2015:  Reham Dawabsha, 27, died of burn wounds sustained on July 31st. She was burned to death along with her husband and 18 month old baby, Ali, when right-wing Israelis firebombed her family’s home. Her four-year-old son, Ahmad, was the only one to survive the attack – with third degree burns all over his body.

The attack took place at about 2:30 in the morning, in the village of Douma, in the northern part of the West Bank near the city of Nablus.

The Israeli attackers arrived in the dead of night in the village, and began by spray-painting hate slogans against Palestinians on the Dawabsha family home. They then broke a window and threw a firebomb inside, setting off the fire that killed the baby.

The graffiti, written in Hebrew, included the phrase ‘price tag’, which is a slogan used by right-wing Israeli extremists against Palestinians – the reference being that continued Palestinian existence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank would exact a price from the Israeli colonizers.

Ali’s father Sa’ad Dawabsha, and his mother Reham, 37, were also burned to death. Ali’s older brother, Ahmad, four years of age, suffered third degree burns all over his body but survived the attack.

In May 2020, nearly five years after the attack, one of the Israeli attackers was convicted of murder. The other attackers were not convicted, and still walk free.

Israel’s Lod District Court convicted Israeli settler, Amiram Ben-Uliel for his involvement in the arson attack that resulted in the death of 18-month-old Ali Dawabsha.

Ben-Uliel was involved in the 2015  attack that killed Ali Dawabsha and severely burned his older brother Ahmad and both his parents, Reham and Sa’ad when the settler, with others, threw flaming Molotov cocktails into the family bedroom. Reham and Saad later died of their wounds.

The Dawabsha family was from Douma village near Nablus. Source: IMEMC

Ahmad Ezzat Khatatbeh

September 25, 2015: Ahmad Ezzat Khatatbeh, 24, was killed by Israeli soldiers at a military roadblock, east of Nablus, in the northern part of the occupied West Bank.

Medical sources said the soldiers shot and seriously injured the young man, a week earlier, adding that he remained in a critical condition at a hospital in Nablus, until he succumbed to his wounds.

Medical sources told Ma’an News Agency that Ahmad was shot three times with live rounds in the shoulder, chest, and abdomen at the Beit Forik checkpoint last Friday.

An Israeli army spokesperson said at the time that a Molotov cocktail was thrown at an Israeli army patrol in the area, near the illegal colony of Itamar, with soldiers responding by shooting a Palestinian suspect and detaining another.

Khatatbeh’s death comes a day after hundreds of mourners marched in the funeral of 18-year-old Hadeel al-Hashlamon, who was shot dead by Israeli forces on Wednesday at a Hebron roadblock.

Hadeel’s death had followed that of another Palestinian who was killed in a village outside Hebron by an explosive device he intended to throw at a military vehicle, the army said.

Some residents provided a similar account of the man’s death, while Palestinian security officials said the man, whom they identified as Dia al-Talahmeh, 21, had been shot dead by Israeli forces.

Khatatbeh’s death Thursday brings the total number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces since the start of 2015 to twenty-six, according to UN documentation. The number does not include Palestinian deaths caused by Israeli settlers.

Ahmad was from Beit Furik town, southeast of Nablus, in the northern part of the West Bank. Source: IMEMC