Nabi Saleh demonstration violently suppressed by Israeli forces; activist shot three times

12th April 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Nabi Saleh, Occupied Palestine

Updated: Nabi Saleh demonstration violently suppressed by Israeli forces; activist shot three times

Posted on: April 12, 2013 |

UPDATE 13th April 2013: The injured Spanish activist returned to hospital Saturday morning, after experiencing continued pain, dizziness and fatigue. She had been shot three times with plastic coated steel bullets at Nabi Saleh demonstration the day before. She is currently under observation at the Rafidia Hospital in Nablus, being treated with antibiotics.

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12th April 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Nabi Saleh, Occupied Palestine

Around one hundred Palestinians, joined by a handful of Israeli and international activists, participated in today’s demonstration in Nabi Saleh. After midday prayers, protesters marched from the centre of the village, deviating from their usual route and walking across the main road and up the hill, trying to reach the water spring stolen by settlers from Halamish settlement more than three years ago.

By the time protesters reached the hilltop, several Israeli Border Police officers waiting and immediately started to shoot tear gas canisters and rubber coated steel bullets at them. One Spanish international activist was hit by a rubber coated bullet in the right leg. As people retreated from the hilltop back to the main road, Israeli forces continued shooting tear gas canisters.

Teargas shot at peaceful demonstrators

As protesters walked chanting and clapping towards a large group of Israeli military personnel and jeeps blocking the road, they were ambushed. Border police officers who had invaded the village shot multiple volleys of rubber coated steel bullets directly at unarmed protesters from a vantage point on top of the hill, as protesters retreated.
The same international activist who had previously been shot was again shot with two bullets; one in the ribs on the back and the other on the stomach. This breaks the Israeli forces’ own rules of engagement which state that rubber coated bullets should be fired at the legs. Despite the fact that officers clearly saw that the activist was injured, they continued shooting rubber coated steel bullets along the road. The activist was immediately assisted by Red Crescent personnel and taken to hospital by ambulance. She is in good health condition, recovering from the injuries at home.

Activist’s injury by rubber coated steel bullets

Israeli forces continued shooting tear gas canisters and rubber coated steel bullets at protesters until three in the afternoon, when the demonstration finished.

The village of Nabi Saleh has been demonstrating against the theft of the natural spring and the occupation since December 2009. Israeli forces violently suppress the weekly Friday protests by shooting tear gas canisters, skunk water, sound bombs, rubber coated steel bullets and even live ammunition at protesters. Two people have been killed, Mustafa and Rushdi Tamimi, and many others severely injured. Bassem Tamimi, from Nabi Saleh, has spent 16 months in Israeli jails, merely for being a prominent activist at the protests. After more than three year and despite the repression, Nabi Saleh continues to fight against the injustices of a brutal military Israeli occupation.

Haaretz: IDF probe: 80 bullets fired without justification in death of West Bank Palestinian, Rushdi Tamimi

By Chaim Levinson and Jack Khoury | Jan.16, 2013

|Investigation finds no reason to use live ammunition in the November shooting death of Rushdie Tamimi, 31, in Nabi Saleh, in the West Bank.

An IDF probe has concluded that in November, Israeli soldiers fired 80 bullets without justification causing the death of a Palestinian man shot in the back during clashes in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh.

Rushdie Tamimi, 31, was killed when a group of Palestinians in the village began throwing stones toward a road from a long distance, and an army reserve unit tried to disperse them.

The army probe of the November 19 shooting in Nabi Saleh arrived at harsh conclusions regarding the conduct of the IDF company commander and the reserve unit called in to disperse the stone-throwers.

While events were still unfolding, Channel 10 reported that the commander had been relieved of his duties following the shooting. The probe conducted by the army’s Central Command found that the commander had been driving in the vicinity when he saw some 10 youths throwing rocks from a hilltop.

The probe determined that the youths were too far from the road to constitute any real danger. Nevertheless, the commander summoned about 10 reserve soldiers from a nearby army outpost and instructed them to disperse the youths.

However, he neglected to report this immediately to battalion headquarters, which was only 50 meters away.

It turned out that the commander did not report the shooting incident at all, until
Haaretz approached the IDF spokesman two days later for a response to the incident. The army investigation found that the soldiers had fired tear gas at the stone-throwers for an hour and a half. When they ran out of canisters, a medic was sent by jeep to the adjacent outpost to bring back some more. At that point, the commander instructed the soldiers to use live rounds.

They fired 80 bullets, one of which hit Tamimi in the back. For several minutes, the soldiers prevented anyone from giving him medical aid, until they relented. Tamimi was evacuated to a hospital in Ramallah, where he died two days later.

The investigation found there was no reason to use live ammunition. Even when the order was given, the commander did not clearly indicate the target and the reason for opening fire. In professional terms, the troops did not “control the fire.”

The commander claimed the soldiers had not noticed that anyone had been hit, which is why they prevented anyone from approaching Tamimi to provide medical aid. This seemed a dubious claim, though, since the victim was bleeding from the head.

Nabi Saleh has been the scene of frequent weekend protests against settler incursions on villagers’ water supply. The stone-throwing that preceded Tamimi’s death took place during Operation Pillar of Defense in Gaza.

The army sees the incident as a “failure of values,” and the Military Police’s investigation branch has opened a formal inquiry into the fatal shooting.

On Tuesday, a 16-year-old Palestinian boy was shot to death by Israel Defense Forces soldiers in the West Bank village of Budrus, Palestinian sources said. Samir Awad was shot four times in the torso and legs, sources said. He is the fourth Palestinian killed by IDF fire in the last week.

The incidents came a day after Israeli soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian man in the Gaza town of Beit Lahiya near the border with Israel. Gazan officials said Mustafa Abu Jarad, 21, was a farmer. He was taken to Shifa hospital, where doctors said he died from his wounds.

The Israel-Gaza frontier has been mostly calm since November, when eight days of Palestinian rocket fire and Israeli air strikes killed 170 Palestinians and six Israelis.

Since then, four Palestinians have been shot dead by Israeli troops along the Gaza border, most of them in an area Israel has deemed off-limits for several years, citing the risk of attacks on soldier

Israeli Soldiers shoot 15 year old in the face with rubber bullet in Nabi Saleh

by Popular Struggle Coordination Committee: 23 March 2012

Nabi Saleh: Israeli Soldiers Shoot 15 year old in the face with rubber bullet The bullet shot from a short distance hit the boy in the face penetrating his right cheek and piercing it. Diplomats from four countries visited Kufer Qaddoum. Portuguese Head of Mission hurt by tear-gas.

 15 year-old Ez Tamimi minutes after being shot in the face. Picture credit: ActiveStills

15 year-old Ez Tamimi minutes after being shot in the face. Picture credit: ActiveStills: Oren Ziv

Israeli Border Police officers shot a rubber-coated bullet at 15 year-old Ezz Tamimi’s face from a distance of about 20 meters, during the weekly demonstration in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh today. The bullet, which hit the boy’s cheek, went through it, gouging a large hole in it. The Israeli army’s own open-fire regulations forbid the use of rubber-coated bullets against minors.

Media contact: Jonathan Pollak +972-54-632-7736

The incident took place at the center of the village ,hundreds of meters away from where a demonstration was taking place, when Border Police officers  invaded the village.

For the first time in months, protesters managed to reach the vicinity of the contested water spring, which sparked village demonstrations over two years ago when taken over by settlers. The protesters, mainly women from the village, managed to confound the soldiers by advancing towards the spring from an unexpected direction. The protesters who were held back by the soldiers meters away from the fountain proceeded to block the road leading to the adjacent Jewish-only settlement of Halamish for some 20 minutes.

The previous night, the Israeli army staged another nighttime raid on the village, an what has become an almost nightly practice in the past three weeks.

Kufer Qaddoum A delegation of foreign diplomats visited Kufer Qaddoum south of Nablus, after soldiers sicced a dog at one of the protesters last week, causing him serious harm. During the visit, several of the diplomats suffered from the effects of tear-gas, shot at protesters to disperse the demonstration. Jorge Lobo de Masquita, Representative of Portugal to the Palestinian Authority , as well as a South African diplomat were rushed to an ambulance, where they were given first aid for tear-gas inhalation.

Witnesses, video challenge army account of Nabi Saleh shooting

by Omar Rahman: +972Magazine: February 3 2012

Activists carry injured French woman while the teargas canister burns in the background (photo: Omar Rahman)

In Nabi Saleh on Friday a French citizen–in the village for her first time–was struck in the back of the head by a high-velocity teargas canister fired by an Israeli soldier. The woman was part of a small group of activists that were walking down the main road out of the village, which was being closed off by a group of soldiers.

Although some youth from the village had been previously throwing stones from the hilltop above, the activists were unarmed and merely chanting slogans. When the group was approximately 25 to 30 meters away, the soldiers immediately began firing teargas canisters and rubber bullets directly at the people without warning. The group of around fourteen people turned to run and the girl was hit in the back of the head/neck area and dropped to the ground. A few of the others stopped to pick her up and a number of them were hit by rubber bullets.

A video shot by Bilal Tamimi, a resident of the village who was standing next to the soldiers, shows the entire incident. The teargas canister clearly ricochets off the girls head in mid-flight.

In response to the incident, Major Peter Lerner of the Israeli military began tweeting that “IDF soldiers on site” reported that she was hit from behind by Palestinian youths throwing stones. The video and eyewitnesses, including myself, can testify that this is false. There were no Palestinian youth standing behind the girl and she was struck after she turned to run from soldiers firing their weapons directly at unarmed activists. After witnesses and video refuted Major Lerner’s baseless assertion, he altered his story and tweeted that the Israeli military will investigate a teargas canister that ricocheted “off the ground.”

Palestinian activist holds blood-soaked kuffiyeh that Fthe rench woman was wearing when struck by canister (photo: Omar Rahman)

French activist in Nabi Saleh shot in head/neck by teargas canister fired by Israeli Occupation Forces

Photo by Activestills

Photo by Activestills

Young man shot in the head by a tear gas projectile at the weekly demonstration in An Nabi Saleh

17 December 2010 | International Solidarity Movement

Shebab injured by teargas projectile

Friday, at the weekly demonstration held in the village of An Nabi Saleh, a young Palestinian was shot by a tear gas canister in the back of his head. Falling down, he was further injured on the front of his head.The military continued to shoot tear gas into the area, without regard for the people coming to help the young unconscious man. It took over 45 minutes before an ambulance arrived, as the army stopped it and prevented them from entering the village. By the time the ambulance arrived, the injured man had regained consciousness. Leaving the village, the ambulance was stopped twice more. The man is now being treated at the hospital in Ramallah.