Israeli forces kill “unarmed, wounded� Palestinian

12/7/2004 8:00:00 PM GMT

The Israeli human rights group, B’Tselem, accused the Israeli army of killing an “unarmed, wounded and neutralized” Palestinian man, describing the murder as an “extrajudicial execution."

The shooting occurred on Friday, Dec. 3, when Israeli occupation forces captured Mahmood Abdel Rahman Kamil in the West Bank village of Raba, south west of Jenin.

The Israeli military claimed at the time of the shooting that soldiers besieged the house where an Islamic Jihad member, Kamil, 27, was hiding and that he was killed when he tried to escape the building.

But B’Tselem’s report showed that the military lied about the circumstances of the incident and proved that Israeli soldiers shot dead an unarmed man while he was already lying wounded on the ground, posing no threat to the soldiers.

B’Tselem also said that Kamil was conscious when Israeli troops raided the building where he was hiding. It added that soldiers forcibly made two other Palestinians carry Kamil’s body to them.

Kamil told the two men that he wanted medical aid, and handed them his gun, the report said, adding that the two men then “dragged” Kamil to the soldiers.

One of the two witnesses, Mohammed al Bazur, 45, said "Mahmud had been wounded lightly in the neck, and was not bleeding much," al-Bazur said about Kamil's condition before he was shot dead. "The blood came from the back of his head, and he spoke in a normal way to Suleiman (the other witness) and me."

He added that a few minutes later, the soldiers shot at Kamil again.

“The soldiers told me and Suleiman to leave, and Suleiman did. I walked away with the soldiers' guns aimed at me. I walked about 20-30 meters and then heard four or five shots. When I looked, I saw Kamil's body jump up a bit… I went over to Kamil and saw that he was dead. He had been shot in the head, and blood was splattered on the ground."

In response to B’Tselem’s report, the Israeli army said that "vague circumstances" surrounded the death of the Palestinian fighter.

Israeli army chief of staff, Moshe Ya'alon, urged the army to carefully examine its methods of passing orders to soldiers in the field.

"It is up to us to check ourselves, to closely examine whether orders to soldiers are lucid and clear, and not too fuzzy, and whether we are sending mixed messages to combat units," he said.

Army sources also said that some members of the "Shayetet 13" naval commando unit, which is responsible for Kamil’s death, have been suspended from duty until an investigation is completed.

The sources added that the investigation will focus on whether the soldiers shot Kamil to death after he was already injured. They added that sending the Palestinians to examine Kamil’s condition falls under the "neighbor practice," also known as the use of human shields, which Israel’s Supreme Court banned a year and a half ago because it endangers innocent civilians.

An Israeli army spokesman said that an initial investigation indicated that "troops made several mistakes in that incident," but he added that there was no “execution".

Last month, B’Tselem called for the resignation of Moshe Yaalon, for what it denounced as "a culture of impunity" over Palestinian civilian deaths.