Thursday, March 29, 2018
Elder of Ziyon
In December, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein commented on the death of wheelchair-bound Ibrahim Abu Thurayeh at a protest on the Gaza border:
Shocked at the “incomprehensible” killing of a wheelchair-bound amputee protester by Israeli security forces, the top United Nations human rights official has called on the country to open an independent and impartial investigation into the incident.I noted at the time that Abu Thurayeh had told his family the night before that he planned to die:
“International human rights law strictly regulates the use of force in the context of protests and demonstrations. The lethal use of firearms should only be employed as the last resort, when strictly unavoidable, in order to protect life,” Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said on Tuesday.
“However, as far as we can see, there is nothing whatsoever to suggest that Ibrahim Abu Thurayeh [the protester] was posing an imminent threat of death or serious injury when he was killed,” he added, stressing: “Given his severe disability, which must have been clearly visible to those who shot him, his killing is incomprehensible – a truly shocking and wanton act.”
The Palestinian’s brother told Ruptly that Thurayeh knew he would not be coming back from the protest alive. “Yesterday my brother said to me while he was eating dinner us: ‘Brother, forgive me. This is the last night you will see me. And you, my mother, forgive me, and you my sisters, you all forgive me...’No comment from Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein.
“He kissed the hand and the leg of my father and said to him: Father, forgive me. This is the last night you will see me, as I intend to be a martyr. I am bored of this life, I have no legs and I have nothing. I want to die and rest from life.”
His mother told Ruptly that her son wanted to “sacrifice himself for the homeland,” adding that “he has become a martyr.” His father said that his son died for Jerusalem.
....The older bereaved brother, who took part in Ibrahim’s funeral, recalled for Mondoweiss their last conversation during breakfast last Wednesday. Ibrahim saw that the demonstrations were becoming deadly. “Mom, bro… please forgive me for any mistake I have ever did, I have lost my legs for my country and I think that is not enough, I must sacrifice my whole body for the sacrifice of the homeland,” Ibrahim said.
Now Israel has completed its investigation, an investigation that Hussein insisted upon:
Findings of a Military Police investigation into the death of Ibrahim Abu Thuraya, a double amputee who was killed during a violent protest near the border fence in the northern Gaza Strip in mid December, reveal that the sniper fire had ended at least an hour before the time Abu Thuraya was hurt according to Palestinian reports, Ynet has learned.I also noted that Abu Thuraya was depressed for years over not being able to provide for his family and to find a wife.
Two snipers from the Maglan special forces unit were questioned under caution by the Military Police Investigations Division in recent weeks on suspicion of causing Abu Thuraya's death. One of the snipers told his investigators, "There's no chance we killed him. We have been trained to detect injuries."
According to the findings, Ynet had learned, the sniper fire that day was halted at least one hour before the Palestinians claim Abu Thuraya was shot and hit. The snipers fired at key instigators only three times that day.
Gaza Division officials have also detected the growing participation of many disabled Palestinians, including people in wheelchairs, in these protests. The fighters have been instructed to avoid hitting the disabled protests, who are usually positioned in the centers of friction, so as not to provide Hamas with the image it is hoping to gain.
The bottom line of the military investigation is that no fault was found in the forces' conduct during that incident. One of the assumptions, which hasn’t been proved as part of the investigation, is that Abu Thuraya died from a ricochet of a certain crowd dispersal mean used by the forces to drive the rioters away.
The two Maglan unit snipers were questioned under caution by the Military Police following Palestinian claims that an autopsy found Abu Thuraya had been struck in the head by a bullet while attending the weekly fence protest.
The two fighters and their commanders argued that no shots had been fired at the disabled protestor. "We are trained to accurately hit our targets," one of the snipers told his investigators. "And in any event, the instruction is to shoot at the lower part of a key instigator's body. There's no chance we killed him. We are trained to detect injuries after every shooting, and when that happens we see people gather around the wounded person. In this case, it didn't happen."
All evidence points to his staging his own death so he could appear to have "died for Jerusalem" and to ensure financial help for his family as he would become a "shahid."
Which means that someone in Gaza shot him in the head, away from the protests (the IDF soldiers did not see a crowd gather around him during the riots.)
Will the UN call for an investigation into a society that encourages people to die so they can be regarded as heroes? Will Hussein demand that Hamas open an "independent investigation" into who actually killed Abu Thuraya?
The very question is absurd. The UN doesn't really care about dead Palestinians when Israel cannot be blamed for their deaths.
