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VII. Deaths that took place
during activities in support of prisoners: the legality of using lethal
weapons in these cases
In at least
three deaths, the victims were not involved in any demonstrations or
marches. In three of the cases, the cause of death was injury by live
bullets and in one case there was an injury with rubber bullets. Shooting
lethal ammunition at the four victims was not violating protocols and laws
or international declarations: it was violating the Israeli prohibition
against soldiers shooting live ammunition and rubber bullets.
Nasser Ereiqat:
Age: 21
Residence: Abu
Deiss
Profession: 3rd
year Student at Bir Zeit University – College of Commerce and Economics
Nasser was
injured on 7 December 1998, and he died on 9 December 1998 at al-Maqassed
hospital in Jerusalem. His father Muhammad (58) gave his testimony.
Nasser had lunch
at 1:15 in the afternoon, and then went up on the roof of the house to
study. Less than a minute later, our neighbor Salameh Ismai’il Ereiqat
knocked on the door. He told my son Tamer that Nasser was wounded. I
immediately went up on the roof and found Nasser on the ground in a coma.
I lifted his head and he was bleeding heavily. I lost my mind. I started
calling for help from the roof and the young men carried him down. On
their way out, the Israeli soldiers stood in their way and prevented them
from taking him to hospital. The young men placed Nasser in the Ambulance
of Maqassed hospital and the soldiers attacked the house. There was a
dispute between them and me, and one of them hit me with the bottom of his
rifle on my eye. I was bleeding. They wanted to go up on the roof to get
Nasser, and insisted on taking him because they did not know that the men
in the neighborhood placed him in the ambulance.
Ayyed Omar
Ereiqat (40), married with four children, from Abu Deiss, gave the
following testimony as well:
I was standing
near the Palestinian Ministry of Interior in Abu Deiss at 1:20 in the
afternoon. I saw an ambulance, and four military vehicles were in the
street with soldiers in plainclothes next to them. They wore bulletproof
vests as well. Two of them stood with M16 guns and aimed at the ambulance,
but the driver refused to follow their orders, and headed to the hospital.
One of them tried to shoot at the ambulance, but his captain prevented
him. The Ministry of Interior is 500 meters away from Nasser’s home.
Salameh Ismai’il
Ereiqat (48), married and father to 4 children, gave the following
testimony:
Four soldiers
attacked the house across from Nasser’s house and broke the door with
their legs. When I asked them what they were doing, they smashed the door
window with their guns and rushed to the roof. The other three soldiers
began searching the house. My wife and three kids were there. I saw the
soldiers shooting my cousin Nasser who was standing on the roof carrying
his books and wearing his pajamas and slippers. After the soldier shot at
him, he turned and looked at me and beat me with the bottom of his rifle,
and went down. He told the soldiers in Hebrew to follow him quickly. It
was 1:10 then. I saw Nasser fall on the ground of the roof that is 10
meters away from my roof. Nasser was studying. He was not involved in any
confrontations. He was killed deliberately and in cold blood. The soldiers
were from the Israeli border soldiers. I called my cousin Tamer and told
him: “tell your father that your brother Nasser was shot by Israelis.”
I went to his
house and saw his father’s eye bleeding because the soldier beat him with
the bottom of his rifle. He was also beaten by a number of Israeli border
soldiers.
Was the use of
rubber bullets in the case of Nasser Ereiqat legal according to the orders
stated in the manual given to Israeli soldiers?
Nasser Ereiqat
was reading his book on his own rooftop when soldiers from a nearby house,
10 meters away, shot cylinder rubber bullets at him. He was injured in the
bottom of his head, was brain dead in a matter of seconds and died after
two days. The soldier who shot him violated the orders on the use of
rubber and live bullets stated in the manual given to Israeli soldiers for
the following reasons:
Firstly: The
soldier did not follow procedures that have to be obeyed prior to
shooting. According to military instructions, a soldier needs to give a
warning, then shoot tear gas, then bullets in the air as another warning
and then rubber bullets against demonstrators. The Israeli military
instructions strictly state that rubber bullets are shot to disperse
demonstrators, but in this case, the bullet was shot against a peaceful
human being.
“In dispersing a
violent riot, there must be a call to the rioters to disperse. If the riot
does not end within a reasonable period of time, it is permitted to employ
means for dispersing demonstrations according to the following stages:
Use of means
such as tear gas, water jets, blasting cap, stun grenades.
Warning shots in
the air.
Firing rubber
ammunition (RRNM and Roma GG)
Firing plastic
bullets.
Definition of a
“violent riot”
A violent
gathering of people, accompanied by throwing stones or other cold
implements, including erecting barricades and burning tires on traffic
routes.
Throwing stones
or other cold implements, by one or many persons, with the intent of
injuring a person, a moving vehicle, or property.
Second:
According to the aforementioned instructions, the release of rubber
bullets should only be aimed at the legs. “Firing Roma GG is carried out
towards a “point range,” aimed solely at the legs of a person who has been
identified as one of the rioters or stone-throwers.” The soldier fired the
rubber bullet at Nasser’s head and not at his legs. He was not among those
demonstrators throwing stones.
Thirdly: The
instructions stated that the minimum distance for shooting is 40 meters.
Nasser was shot at a range of 10 meters. “The minimum range for firing is
40 meters. It is strictly prohibited to fire ammunition from a distance of
less than 40 meters.”
The killing of
Nasser was a violation in itself. The soldiers even tried to stand in the
way of the ambulance that was taking him to hospital. Soldiers attacked
his father and injured him. His father had a hemorrhage in his left eye.
Chicago Forensic
physician's point of view on rubber bullets and the injuries caused by
them
According to the
report written by Dr. Robert Kirschner, head of Physicians for Human
Rights in Boston, USA, the rubber bullet which hit Nasser is a of a new
type:
“More recently,
other variants have been reportedly used by the IDF, including a 1.5 cm
plastic-coated steel sphere, and a three part cylindrical rubber bullet
capped by metal disks at each end. This bullet, which weighs 50 gm,
measures 5.5 cm in length and 1.7 cm in diameter. It breaks apart into 3
separate portions when fired. From its weight, this projectile is also a
rubber bullet in name only, and must contain a significant metallic
component.”
Kirschner also
mentions the allowed distance for shooting all sorts of rubber bullets:
“The safe range
for firing these rubber bullets was reported by Dr. Yehuda Hiss (Director
of the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Israel) and his associates to be
beyond 50 meters, apparently the distance at which there should be
sufficient loss of kinetic energy to prevent penetrating injury or serious
non-penetrating injury. The safe distance reported by Hiss is 10 meters
greater than that given in a booklet for soldiers serving in the Central
Command of the IDF.”
The report also
enumerates the dangers that arise from head injuries:
“Thus, a
non-penetrating impact to the head is likely to transmit much of the
impact energy through the skull to the brain, and have more serious
consequences than a similar impact to the abdominal region, where there is
better ability to absorb the imparted energy, and injury to internal
organs is less likely to prove serious or fatal.”
The report also
comments on the specific danger of injury caused by the cylindrical rubber
bullet, which injured Nasser:
“The tissue
damage caused by a rubber-coated steel ball perforating the skin is much
greater than that caused by a normal bullet, which pierces the skin more
easily because of its more aerodynamic shape and smaller diameter. The
wounds are more akin to severe blunt trauma injury, and cylindrical rubber
bullets cause even greater damage as they are tumbling when they strike
the body. There is a greater tearing, or lacerating, effect, often gaping
holes, and more internal damage along the path of these projectiles.
Although they rarely penetrate deeply as their kinetic energy is
dissipated in the superficial tissues, only a few cm of the penetration is
necessary to enter the brain.”
Nasser is the
58th martyr who died from rubber bullet injuries in the last ten years,
from November 1988 to December 1998.
Members of the
Israeli Intelligence came to the hospital on the morning of 9 December
1998 and asked for the rubber bullet that hit Nasser. Suleiman Turkman,
the Administrative and Technical Director at the hospital said: “we have
hundreds of rubber and live bullets, and it never happened that the
Israeli Intelligence came and asked for them before.”
Jihad Jaber
‘Ayyad:
Profession:
Labourer
Age: 16 (DOB 11
March 1982)
Residence:
Silwad – Ramallah
His brother
Ismai’il Pedro Ayyad (23), married and father to one child, works as a
tile contractor, gave his testimony.
My brother Jihad
used to work with me. On 9 December 1998, at seven in the morning, I
headed with him to work at al-Balou’u area in al-Bireh. We worked at the
building site at exactly 11 in the morning.
My brother
headed to a supermarket (al-Anass) to buy breakfast. On his way there he
saw young men on the crossroad of Bet El throwing stones at Israeli
soldiers.
The soldiers
were shooting at the young men in response. Jihad continued on his way,
bought breakfast, and returned to work.
We finished
breakfast and we stopped working because there was more trouble. There was
a march heading from Ramallah to the crossroad, and the number of young
men increased.
Jihad stood
there watching the confrontations. Our work was 500 meters away from the
crossroad. Jihad was standing on the roof of the building where we work,
when all of a sudden, a rubber bullet hit his right hand. He immediately
went down from the roof. When I found out that he was hit, I told him to
go home. That was about 2:20 in the afternoon. While we were preparing
ourselves to go home, a Palestinian soldier arrived and asked all the
workers to leave the area, claiming that the Israeli soldiers are going to
shoot live bullets! The men were spreading in the area we were working at.
I finished my
prayers and called Jihad to join me. We started walking, and all of a
sudden Jihad fell on the ground. It was three o’clock. My brother was hit.
I took off his clothes and his chest was bleeding. A live bullet hit his
chest above his right breast. He was taken in an ambulance to Ramallah
hospital. He was entered into the operation room, and the bullet was
extracted. However, during the operation, he died. That was half an hour
after he arrived to hospital.
Was the use of
live ammunition against Ayyad legal?
In the case of
Jihad, soldiers violated instructions on rubber and live bullets that are
found in the booklet. Jihad was at his workplace when he was hit, and then
again by live bullets as he was leaving his workplace on his way home.
Instructions state that
“it is
prohibited to open fire when the conditions at the scene do not permit the
certain identification of the suspect and the point of aiming (the legs of
the suspect or the wheels of the vehicle).”
In another
article, it is stated that
“opening fire
will be done, only when according to the estimate of the shooter, he has a
real chance of hitting the legs of the suspect.”
Kamal Mansour
Abu Udwan and Mahmoud Sleiman Amer:
On 11 December
1998, a march took flight after the Friday prayers from the Red Cross
headquarters in Qalqilyah where the strike tent is (where people went on a
hunger strike in support of prisoners), and headed to al-Naqarah
neighbourhood which is located on the west side of the city and parallel
to the borders that separate the 1948 lands (the Green Line).
When the
marchers reached the neighborhood they started throwing stones at soldiers
from a large square at the crossroad connecting the settlements to 1948
lands. Soldiers threw tear gas canisters and shot rubber and live bullets
at the demonstrators who did not put the life of the soldiers in any
danger because they were at a considerable distance. Dozens of people were
injured and two were killed: Kamal Mansour Abu Udwan (21, from Qalqilyah,
worker at a paint factory) and Muhammad Sleiman Amer (18 from al-Qabibah,
student).
Amer was
visiting his father at the time, who is a lieutenant at the National
Security Forces. When he heard of the incidents, he volunteered to give
first aid. When he tried to save Kamal Abu Udwan, who was hit by a live
bullet in his forehead, he received a bullet in his left eye and die
instantly.
Was the use of
live bullets in the case of Abu Udwan and Amer legal?
“In the event
that a soldier or another person is attacked with stones or with other
cold implements,
it is permitted
to use a weapon against the assailant, only when there is an immediate
danger to life.”
In the two
cases, soldiers were attacking with stones and cold weapons, and the
distance between the two victims and the soldiers at the time of their
death was between 70 and 100 meters (estimate by the field worker for the
PHRMG after he was in the area following the death). The speed at which
the thrown object was, and the wind friction, makes the object thrown lose
a lot of its kinetic energy. This means that if it hits the target (the
soldier) the injury would be mild and not serious at all. In this case,
the soldier has failed to follow the instructions on opening fire which
are stated above. The soldier failed to follow shooting interactions
because he is supposed to shoot at the legs and not at the upper body
part. The two martyrs, Abu Udwan and Amer were hit in the forehead and
left eye, respectively.
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