Israeli human rights group B’Tselem has exposed yet another murder by occupation forces of two unarmed Palestinians — brothers Nidal and Khaled ‘Amirah — in the West Bank city of Nablus.
Israeli troops murdered the clearly unarmed brothers in an alley after making the pair walk towards them at first. The footage is from June but B’Tselem and French forensic investigators Index have just released their analysis showing how they were killed:
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In its report on the murders, B’Tselem says that the brothers were trying to help a terrified family attempting to evacuate the area which the occupation forces were attacking:
Nidal ‘Amirah, 40, and his brother Khaled ‘Amirah, 35, arrived in the neighborhood to help another family that wanted to leave, fearing the operation. Nidal ‘Amirah, an officer in the Palestinian Authority security forces, was off duty and unarmed.
In video footage filmed by journalists from the end of the street, Nidal, who is wearing a white shirt, is seen walking slowly toward a group of soldiers with his empty hands raised. He stops a few meters from them and lifts his shirt at their request. According to testimonies B’Tselem collected from eyewitnesses, at this stage one of the soldiers demanded that ‘Amirah remove his pants as well. He refused. ‘Amirah is then seen taking one step toward the soldiers, at which point three soldiers lunge at him and begin beating him.
At this stage, Khaled ‘Amirah, in a black shirt, tried to approach together with several paramedics standing at the end of the street. In the footage, one soldier is seen aiming his weapon at them. The paramedics step back slightly, while Khaled continues advancing with his arms stretched forward.
Six shots are then heard, and at least one bullet can be seen striking the ground near Khaled’s feet. Another bullet hits a wall near the group standing at the end of the street, and one paramedic and a photographer are hit by shrapnel.
At the same time, several soldiers continued beating Nidal, who tried to shield himself and struggled against them. At that stage, other soldiers seized Khaled and dragged him into a nearby alley, where the four detainees from the Qotub family were being held. In the alley, the soldiers tried to force him to the ground while one soldier choked him.
Two shots were heard from the alley and soon afterwards, the soldiers dragged Nidal, too, toward its entrance while he struggled against them. At this stage, intense gunfire was heard from inside the alley and a cloud of dust rose from it. The source of the gunfire was outside the cameras’ field of view. The volley of shots injured Nidal and at least one soldier.
Nidal, who broke free from the soldiers holding him in the chaos created by the burst of gunfire, is seen in the video limping forward. His path, however, is blocked by at least two soldiers, leaving him with nowhere to flee. A joint forensic analysis of the video by B’Tselem and INDEX shows that at this moment, one of the two soldiers, who was standing just a few meters away, shoots Nidal in the back and Nidal falls to the ground.
After shooting Nidal, the same soldier is seen approaching the spot where another soldier is pinning Khaled to the ground and executing him with a point-blank shot to the head.
Several Red Crescent paramedics, who were only a short distance away throughout the incident, try to reach the brothers to provide medical care, but the soldiers keep them away at gunpoint. Analysis of the footage indicates that at this point Nidal ‘Amirah was still alive and may have survived, if the soldiers had not denied him medical treatment. Military vehicles then arrived, and additional soldiers dispersed everyone present using live fire and stun grenades.
The same soldiers also beat and hospitalised members of the family trying to evacuate. Israel claimed, of course, that the men who had been killed are ‘terrorists.’ But B’Tselem treats this with the contempt it deserves, particularly after the video footage confirmed the lie:
The military addressed the killing of the ‘Amirah brothers in a statement: During a suspect inspection, two terrorists attempted to snatch the weapon of one of the fighters operating in the area. As a result, […] several rounds were discharged, causing moderate injury to one IDF soldier and light injuries to three others. The force responded with gunfire toward the terrorists, killing both of them.”
However, a forensic reconstruction of the incident by INDEX and eyewitness testimonies collected by B’Tselem indicate that Khaled ‘Amirah was executed with a point-blank shot to the head while pinned to the ground and posing no danger to the soldiers. Nidal ‘Amirah was shot in the back from close range after being wounded in the leg and while at least two soldiers were blocking his escape route, and he, too, posed no threat.
The new revelations come just two weeks after Israel murdered two unarmed Palestinians in Jenin as they were surrendering. Almost all UK ‘mainstream’ media uniformly downplayed the executions, using the same language that the men ‘appeared to surrender‘ rather than reflecting the reality. The reality is that they were executed after demonstrating they were unarmed and lying face down on the ground. The Israeli occupation forces kicked them and then murdered them, as the video footage clearly demonstrated. Two weeks before that, the occupation murdered two West Bank children — again preventing paramedics from reaching them.
Israel is a terror state. As during its previous fake ceasefires in Gaza, it has used the current one to escalate its war on the unarmed civilians of the West Bank.
Featured image courtesy of the ‘Amirah family
By Skwawkbox
This post was originally published on Canary.