http://www3.haaretz.co.il/eng/scripts/article.asp?mador=14&datee=3/13/01&id=113178
Autopsies prove that police fired live ammo at Israeli Arabs
By Baruch Kra, 03/13/2001
Ha'aretz Correspondent
Autopsy reports submitted yesterday to the Or Commission by Abu Kabir
forensic laboratory experts contradict police testimony to the
commission on their use of live ammunition in early October clashes
with Israeli Arabs.
Casting doubt on claims made by the policemen, the Abu Kabir experts
concluded that two of the four Arab civilians killed in violent
stand-offs at Umm al Fahm and the Jatt village died of live-bullet
wounds.
The bullet debate pivots on an incident on October 1 at the "Kahoush"
hilltop overlooking the main Umm al Fahm junction after some 15 Border
Policeman occupied a house on the hilltop. Israeli security officials
said the objective of this raid was to remove unruly demonstrators
from the hill because they were endangering vehicles on the main road
below.
Yesterday's forensic laboratory report establishes that one victim of
this Border Policeman operation, Muhammad Jibrin, bled to death after
a bullet severed an artery. Another man, Matzlah Abu Jirad, a Dir al
Balah resident, died near the hilltop on October 2, after bullet
fragments pierced his lungs.
Border Police Commander Benzi Sau decided to seize the house on the
Kahoush hilltop without informing Police Northern District Commander
Alike Ron or anyone else, Or Commission testimony established
yesterday. Sau replied, "Yes," when asked by Supreme Court Justice
Theodor Or, chairman of the state commission, if it was his decision,
alone, to seize the house. He said, "No," when Or asked if he had
consulted about the house's seizure with anyone else.
Sau's testimony buttressed Ron's affidavit to the commission, which Or
read yesterday. In it, Ron said he would have opposed the Border
Police plan to occupy the hilltop home if he had known of it, since
the structure is within Umm al Fahm's municipal borders, and an
Israeli security operation on it would have provoked more violence.
As it turned out, after Israeli security forces occupied the hilltop
structure on October 1, Arab demonstrators climbed to a still higher
site and hurled stones and (apparently) Molotov cocktails at the
Border Policemen. Israeli troops began firing rubber-coated bullets.
One Arab demonstrator, Ahmad Si'am, died as a result of this
rubber-bullet fire. Jibrin was fatally wounded by a live round about
half an hour later.
Witnesses gave details of Jibrin's death yesterday in testimony to the
Or panel. They claimed Jibrin squatted behind a plastic table a few
dozen meters from the occupied structure on the hilltop, and
apparently made derogatory remarks about one border patrolman (an
immigrant from Ethiopia) who was stationed there. After he rose and
started to flee up the hilltop, he was shot from behind.
Prior to the submission of yesterday's testimony and autopsy reports,
policemen involved in the incident had insisted that no live bullets
were shot on the hilltop above Umm al Fahm on October 1.
Abu Jirad was killed by a bullet fired a day later while standing
between the hilltop and the Umm al Fahm junction. It has been
established that snipers from an Israeli police special operations
unit, located across route 65, fired bullets during this October 2
incident.
Policemen in this unit testified to the Or Commission that they aimed
only at demonstrators who were endangering the lives of policemen
below at the junction, and that they adhered to rules of engagement
orders given by Ron.
It is unclear whether Abu Jirad was killed by bullets fired by men in
the special operations unit, or by policemen located on the Kahoush
hilltop. He was, in any event, located at some distance from any
police force - a fact that casts doubt on contentions that he posed a
danger to policemen.
Referring to another October incident, Border Police Officer Rotam
Biton told the Or Commission yesterday that men in his unit were
ordered to leave their firearms at their vehicles before going off to
disperse an irate crowd of Jews in Tiberias. Border Police used clubs
to stop the crowd from defacing a mosque in the city; one patrolman
was killed in this crowd control operation, Biton noted.
