Leaked footage shows Israeli police shooting unarmed Palestinian in the back

In May last year, an Israeli Border Force officer near the al-Zaim checkpoint outside of Jerusalem shot a Palestinian in the back with a sponge-tipped round and wounded him. Footage of the incident surfaced on Saturday November 2 2019, viewed millions of times on social media and broadcast on Israeli television.

In the video, police tell the Palestinian man to leave. He begins walking away with his hands up, before a man tells him to lower his hands. A woman shouts “run already.” Several seconds later, he is shot in the back and falls to the ground, crying out in pain. Then, the camera pans around and we see the officers walk in the other direction.

WARNING: SENSITIVE IMAGES

Video shared on Twitter by a Channel 13 journalist.

The female officer heard in the video was arrested in October last year along with four other officers. At her bail hearing, the judge said she appeared to shoot the man “as a dubious form of entertainment". Police have removed her from her position, and reassigned or removed the other officers involved.

Israel’s justice ministry has investigated the incident, and is yet to announce its decision.

There is some false information being spread about what happened. The caption on this video, viewed more than 150 thousand times, claims that it happened “today”, whereas it actually happened in May 2018. It also claims that “rubber-coated bullets” were fired, when in reality only one round was fired, and it was sponge-tipped. In 2003, rubber bullets were deemed not appropriate for use by an Israeli government inquiry.

Other posts erroneously claim the man was killed.

Article by Peter O’Brien (@POB_journo)