Of course Nadim Nawara was killed by live fire - but where?

When you don't ask the right questions, you won't get the correct answers.

The Guardian condescendingly reports:

A postmortem examination of the exhumed body of one of two Palestinian teenagers killed by Israeli forces at a demonstration last month has reportedly identified wounds consistent with live ammunition, despite the Israeli military's denial that it used live rounds that day.

The killings of 17-year-old Nadeem Nawara and 16-year-old Mohammad Salameh caused international outrage and calls from the US for a full investigation after their deaths were caught on video camera footage that made clear the boys posed no threat to Israeli forces at the time of their deaths.

This week Human Rights Watch issued a report suggesting that the killing of the two boys was a war crime. "The wilful killing of civilians by Israeli security forces as part of the occupation is a war crime," said Sarah Leah Whitson, the group's Middle East and North Africa director.

...Anonymous senior Israeli military officials quoted in the local media attempted in the aftermath of the killings to suggest the footage had been forged or a mystery Palestinian gunmen had actually killed the boys – shooting four rounds over a period of more than two hours, apparently without being noticed by several dozen Israeli soldiers and police.

Yup, Israelis are a bunch of liars and are engaged in a massive conspiracy to hide its decision to shoot boys wantonly. It is so fortunate that none of the Israelis seen in the CNN video are running to testify to "Breaking the Silence."

Speaking of, although it has not been translated into English, I strongly urge you to read the Google translation of this lengthy article in Maariv. It is the real "Breaking the Silence." The reporter interviews dozens of IDF soldiers as to their frustration at their inability to defend themselves from Palestinian Arab rioters. The rules of engagement are so vague, and the consequences of firing against IDF policy so onerous, that many decide to just let themselves be attacked by stones and Molotov cocktails rather than fire back. Rioters climb on army jeeps with impunity. One waves his private parts at a soldier knowing he will not respond.  Even tear gas and rubber bullets require special permission and can only be used under specific circumstances. More than one soldier describes himself as a "sitting duck."

I don't know the rules of engagement for the Border Police, but I imagine they are largely identical and their limitations are equally vague.

In short, while there are no doubt violations of the rules of engagement sometimes, the idea that these Israelis, with all the cameras around, would shoot two kids dead in the most open area possible is insane.

But that's not the main proof.

As we have shown, the Nawara's fall coincides with the police firing a rubber bullet. Of that there is no doubt. We can hear the sound of two separate firings, which sound identical, from two rifles. We see the paper wad after it is expelled from the rubber bullet attachment. We have synchronized the events and there is no way that the bullet fired then was live.



The many posts I have on this topic, and the comments with further research, and other people's work, all show this to be true.

So we have two verifiable, seemingly contradictory facts: Israeli forces didn't fire a live round at the time Nawara fell, and he was killed by a live round. How can these be reconciled?

Of course there was no Palestinian Arab gunman at the scene with a gun shooting Nawara on video. We would have heard that shot. Similarly, the idea that he was shot by Israelis 250 meters south, who were dealing with a different riot, at the exact same moment of the rubber bullet, is impossible, because the sound would have been different on the CNN audio.

When you eliminate the impossible, the remainder, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.

The only way to understand what might have happened is to recall the infamous Mohammed al Dura incident, where the boy that was supposedly killed by the IDF ignited the intifada. Al Dura became a poster child for Israeli brutality. All evidence shows that he was not killed by Israeli fire.

There are clearly some people who are not above killing a child in order to further their cause. And there are many people who want to spark a new intifada. There are people with the incentive to kill a Palestinian Arab youth and manipulate events to make it appear that Israel did it.

Nawara was not killed on camera. He was killed somewhere between the video and his arrival at the hospital. Maybe even by an M-16, which are available in the West Bank.

I think Nawara was probably hit by a rubber bullet, although perhaps he was instructed to fake a fall as soon as he heard a shot - we saw at least one other fake "victim" at the same incident only minutes before the Nawara incident, and his fall seems inconsistent with being shot in the chest with a live bullet, to say the least.

The final piece of the puzzle is that Palestinian Arab "witnesses" lie, constantly, for their cause. we've also seen that in this case (the bullet that Nawara's father showed CNN, for example, and other testimony in the case claiming that Israeli forces to the south were firing at the protesters, even though none of the protesters ever look in that direction.)

If Nawara would have been shot in the ambulance, or en route to the hospital, no one would be talking about it. Such a conspiracy of silence would be unthinkable in Israel or any Western nation, but unfortunately Palestinian Arabs know what would happen to them if they publicly go against the party line.

Far fetched? Yes. But we have motive, we have opportunity, we have a scenario where no witness would publicly contradict even the most stunning cold-blooded murder. No one wants to make such an incendiary claim and reporters don't want to go down that path, but if you want to reach the truth, that is the path that must be followed.

And these are the questions that are not being asked about the death of Nadim Nawara.

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Beitunia Pallywood again: The injury of Mohammed Azza/Azi/Aziz (update)

The HRW report I mentioned earlier today does shed light on something: the time of the shooting of the injured youth Mohammed Azza.

HRW says:

Israeli forces shot and wounded Azza in the chest at around 12:20 p.m., about 15 meters from where Nawareh and Salameh were later fatally shot, Azza’s father and a witness told Human Rights Watch.

Human Rights Watch has not seen any video footage of Azza at the time he was shot. Azza stated he was not throwing rocks at that time.

...According to the reports, Azza suffered a gunshot injury to the left anterior chest wall and the left lung.

We have video from Camera 2 of Azza apparently being shot:



Starting from 12:20:00 on the security cam (37:20 of the video) you can see Azza moving towards the lower right side of the view, right next to a burning tire. He is hurling lots of stones, breaking some into smaller pieces on the ground.

Now that we have established how truthful Azza is in his testimony, we can go on.

At 12:20:42 on the CCTV time we see Azza suddenly crouch and turn - again, completely inconsistent with being shot in the chest with live fire, but possibly consistent with being hit with a rubber bullet. Two Arab girls in the lower right of the screen barely flinch at the sound, and continue to walk into the apparent line of fire, unconcerned.

Azza staggers back north, where he is quickly aided by a few people who help bring him to an ambulance.

There are photos of, supposedly, Azza with what appears to be a lot of blood. (I am not sure at what point he loses his light colored top/scarf.)

At least one photo appears to have been retouched, though. Here is the first one from the photographer's Facebook page:



Here's the version from Palestine News Network:

That is very bright blood, especially on dark clothing.

In the video, no blood is apparent on the street after the shooting. Still, this photo of him being carried to the ambulance seems to show blood on the carrier's jeans.

HRW's account is wildly different from the "eyewitnesses" that they love to quote. Mohammed told The Guardian that he was shot in the back, not the chest. 

Fakher Zayed in the same Guardian video says that he witnessed three youths get shot: first one in the chest, the second in the back, and the third in an unspecified area, a half hour after the second. Since Nawareh was facing south and Salameh was facing north, and Azi was according to the video and HRW hit 85 minutes before Nawareh, none of what Zayed says squares with the facts (unless there was a mystery fourth incident.)

Azza's account of the events to The National is also utterly inconsistent with his statements elsewhere and with the video:

“The protest wasn’t so big when we got there [at about 10.30am], there were only around 70 boys and four soldiers who were shooting rubber bullets and tear gas. When we went to the front, everyone was moving fast and throwing rocks. I was looking directly at a soldier under the vine tree and I wasn’t moving,” Mohammed recalls, sitting next to his father in their detached home.

“Then I heard the sound of the rifle. I thought it was a rubber bullet but then I felt something burning inside me. I started running with some of the other guys and they told me that I had been shot in my back. Some people picked me up and carried me to the ambulance.”

So he was looking directly at the soldier who shot him and he was shot in the back? He started running with them even though no one is seen on the video?

None of this bothers Human Rights Watch. HRW says that Azza suffered wounds "to the chest" but then later says that "Mohammed Azza, 15, told Human Rights Watch that Israeli forces shot him in the back earlier during the protests." So HRW, trying to square the accounts, instead of showing skepticism over Azza's words compared to the medical report, seems to be claiming that Azza was shot twice!

The accounts are absurdly inconsistent, and they do not jive with the video at the moment that HRW says the event occurred, but HRW just shrugs and insists Israel shot him with live fire in the chest, causing him to...crouch down and run under his own power.

Here is the supposedly critically wounded Azza, smiling for the camera in a photo posted on the day after the incident:

And here is is five days later:

I have no idea what really happened at 12:20 PM on May 15. I do know that Azza is lying, big time, about what he was doing at the time, as are all the other "eyewitnesses" and his family. Based on his reaction and the reaction of the passersby, I think it is highly unlikely that he was hit by a live bullet.

More importantly, Human Rights Watch also has no idea what really happened - but that doesn't stop them from pushing their own theories as if they are fact.

(h/t Bob Knot)

UPDATE: I wrote this based on HRW's time of 12:20 for the incident. But DCI is claiming that they have a CAM 3 view of the incident that happened around 13:00. (Conveniently, we don't have CAM 1 footage at 13:00, it starts at 13:04, and that's the highest quality camera.)

Someone is wrong. 

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HRW lies about Beitunia

In a  move that surprises no one, Human Rights Watch has released a report on the Beitunia shootings that uncritically reports every anti-Israel claim and ignores everything that is self-contradictory:

Video footage, photographs, witness statements, and medical records indicate that two 17-year-old boys whom Israeli forces shot and killed on May 15, 2014 posed no imminent threat to the forces at the time. The boys, who had been participating in a demonstration in the West Bank, were apparently shot with live ammunition, Human Rights Watch said.

Video footage clearly shows Israeli soldiers firing in the direction of the boys, Nadim Nawareh and Mohammed Salameh, and the boys falling to the ground. Medical records indicate that the two boys, as well as 15-year-old, Mohammed Azza, whom Israeli forces also shot and seriously wounded, suffered wounds to the chest caused by live ammunition. Nawareh and Salameh were shot right through the chest. Witnesses told Human Rights Watch they heard the sound of live ammunition being fired, quite distinct from the sound of rubber bullet fire, at the time the three boys were shot.

“The willful killing of civilians by Israeli security forces as part of the occupation is a war crime,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director. “Israel has a responsibility to prosecute the forces who targeted these teens, and also those responsible for assigning the use of live ammunition to police a demonstration.”

The Israeli military stated that it is investigating the killings but that its forces “did not use live fire,” only rubber bullets and teargas. However, rubber bullets are specifically designed not to penetrate bodies. It is highly unlikely that, at a range of at least 60 meters, rubber bullets would have caused the injuries that killed Nawareh and Salameh and wounded Azza. Nawareh’s family retrieved what may be the live bullet that killed him.

Offenses committed by Israeli security forces as part of the occupation, such as deliberate attacks on civilians, would be subject to prosecution under international humanitarian law as war crimes. Israeli forces have repeatedly shot Palestinians who posed no imminent threat with live ammunition during similar protests, including at an April 4 demonstration in the same location, and the Israeli military has a poor record of bringing soldiers to justice for such acts, Human Rights Watch said.

The boys were shot in three separate incidents but in virtually the same location in the town of Beitunia, where Palestinians had earlier held a demonstration to commemorate “Naqba Day,” which marks the expulsion of Palestinians from present-day Israel from 1947 to 1949. After the demonstration, there was a violent confrontation during which Israeli forces fired rubber bullets, live ammunition, and tear gas at Palestinians who threw rocks at the forces.

A photojournalist taking pictures at the time, Samer Nazzal, told Human Rights Watch that Israeli forces shot rubber bullets at a group of Palestinians who gathered to carry Nawareh away. Human Rights Watch viewed a series of Nazzal’s high-shutter-speed photographs taken immediately after Nawareh was shot that show a projectile, apparently a rubber bullet, coming from the direction of the Israeli forces. It struck the head of a Palestinian medic, who was wearing a bright orange vest and was part of the group carrying Nawareh.

The Israeli rights group B’Tselem reported that Israeli occupation forces also shot and wounded a 23-year-old man in the arm that day with live ammunition.

...Witness statements, medical reports, security camera videos, news media videos and photographs by journalists, which Human Rights Watch viewed, indicate that Israeli forces fired live ammunition.

As we have shown conclusively, at least Nadeem Nawarah's fall to the ground was accompanied by what was undoubtedly the firing of a rubber bullet.



Nazzal and the other "eyewitnesses" are lying.

Nazzal, 28, a photographer and journalist for Raya news, told Human Rights Watch that he arrived at the scene at around 1:30 p.m., after the clashes had started. He later heard Israeli forces fire both rubber bullets and live ammunition. Witnesses at demonstrations, as well as Israeli, Palestinian and international human rights monitors, have repeatedly confirmed that the sound of live fire is easily distinguished from the sound of the type of rubber bullets used by the Israeli Defense Forces. Nazzal said:

There were seven or eight soldiers on foot in an elevated area, behind a concrete wall and fence, about 60 meters away. There were also a lot of [military vehicles] about 200 meters away from us. There were dozens of protesters, most of them doing nothing but watching, and about 20 others were throwing rocks. Two or three of them would run forward and throw rocks at a time, but because the soldiers were in an elevated place and shielded, none of the rocks seemed to actually hit them. They were shooting tear gas and rubber bullets constantly, and once in a while we would hear live ammunition.

I started taking photos of the clashes as soon as I got there. Nadim [Nawareh] decided to cross the street. At that time he wasn’t throwing rocks; he was just crossing the street. As soon as he was in the middle of the street he was shot straight in the chest. I saw it. I was just 15 meters away from him. I heard the bullet, and he dropped to the ground and didn’t move.

Zayed, the store owner, and Abbas Mamoni, another journalist, corroborated Nazzal’s account.

Nazzal took a rapid series of photographs that show a projectile flying toward the group evacuating Nawareh, and apparently striking the head of a man wearing a medic’s fluorescent vest. The man stumbles and holds his head in subsequent images.

This photograph, if accurate, exactly corresponds with the second gunshot sound in the CNN video, a sound identical to the first one that corresponds to Nawarah's fall. If the sound of a rubber bullet is so easily distinguishable from that of live fire - and it is - then the two shots were of the same type and Nawara was not hit by live fire.

HRW pretends to look at the inconsistencies but dismisses them with what can only be described as a wild conspiracy theory: (There are links in HRW's report that do not go anywhere, and there are no links to the description of the rifle.)

Some commentators and news reports have incorrectly stated that the CNN footage could not show Israeli forces shooting live ammunition because the assault rifles seen in the footage have attachments that are used to fire rubber bullets. However, the Israeli military has used at least one type of assault-rifle attachment, produced by Israel Military Industries, that allows forces to fire rubber bullets, but also to fire live ammunition without removing the attachment. A brochure states that the 22-centimeter-long “launcher” can be “attached to any rifle with NATO flash suppressor” and allows “immediate 5.56-mm lethal firing capability without removing adapter.”

Human Rights Watch could not determine whether the gunshot in the video fired a live round or a rubber bullet, or to rule out the possibility that Nawareh might have been killed by another gunshot that the video did not record.

The gunshot in the CNN video was accompanied by the appearance of a paper wad (you need to go frame by frame to see it) that accompanies many but not all rubber bullet firings, but do not correspond with live fire. In addition, the sound of a live fire round even from such a rifle would sound different, as HRW emphasizes. So HRW prefers a conspiracy theory involving several layers of IDF command over the clear evidence from the CNN video and photographs that HRW relies upon.

HRW's presentation of the facts here simply do not jive with the reality of the videos and the photos. The organization casts no doubt on the supposed bullet that Nawara's family has shown to the media that could not possibly have passed through a human body as an  expert showed. And it is credulous regarding "eyewitnesses" who are known to lie.

But HRW isn't interested in discovering the truth - it is interested in damning Israel.

(h/t Gidon)

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The Perfectly Placed Pallywood Photographer

This video - again taken from the extended CCTV video released from "Nakba Day" protests in Beitunia - isn't a smoking gun, but it sure raises some questions about what may have been pre-planned.

It shows the events in the three minutes between the "botched Pallywood" video I showed (which now has over 20,000 views) and the first incident with Nadim Nawara. Clearly, one of the masked leaders of the riots also is good friends with photographers on the scene, and they manage to be at the right place at the right time.




(h/t Elihu)

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The grassy knoll in Beitunia

Ben Ehrenreich writes that the bullets that killed the youths in Beitunia were not fired by the Israeli shooters in the CNN video, but from an entirely different group:

In the LARB article I quoted a doctor who treated both boys and who told me that their wounds were without question caused by live fire. Nuwara was shot in the chest, Abu Thaher in the back: both bullets passed through their bodies, leaving exit wounds. The rubber-coated steel bullets used by the IDF can and often do penetrate the skin and can be lethal, but they cannot pass entirely through a human torso even when fired from a relatively short distance. I interviewed four eyewitnesses to the killings, all of whom said live fire was used. (The concussion from a live shot sounds differently than that of a shot when rubber-coated bullets are fired. I have met 11-year-olds in the West Bank who can accurately tell what sort of munitions are being fired by ear alone. All four of the eyewitnesses I interviewed had witnessed many such clashes and knew the difference well.) Three of them testified that they saw Israeli commanders choosing targets and pointing them out to snipers just before each boy was killed.

One thing is worth noting: the bullet that killed Nadim Nuwara was almost certainly not fired by the soldier caught on the CNN video. It was almost certainly a coincidence that he fired his weapon at approximately the same moment that Nuwara was hit. And he almost certainly was shooting rubber-coated bullets: the video is hazy, but his rifle appears to be equipped with the sort of extension that is attached to the barrel of an M16 to allow it to fire rubber-coated bullets. Mohannad Darabee, one of the witnesses I interviewed, told me repeatedly that he was sure the shot that killed Nuwara did not come from the group of Border Police who had gathered on a driveway just uphill and slightly back from the road. Darabee walked me to the spot where Nuwara fell, and to the spot from which the Border Police (and the now-suspended soldier) had been firing. The corner of a building stood in the way: there was no line of fire that would have allowed those soldiers to hit Nuwara.

However, another, larger group of Israeli soldiers had gathered behind a concrete blast wall on the edge of a parking lot about 200 meters from the spot where Nuwara was hit. (See image above.) It was there, Darabee said, that he saw a commander choosing targets through binoculars. Those soldiers had an unimpeded shot at Nuwara. Forgive me if this is all a bit hard to visualize: The Guardian produced a graphic that maps it all out. But I want to make this very clear, because the waters have been muddied considerably, both through deliberate obfuscation and by speculation about a video that reveals less than it appears to: the fact that the soldier caught on video by CNN was apparently firing rubber-coated bullets only confirms the accounts of eyewitnesses who testified that the bullet that killed Nadim Nuwara was likely fired by another group of soldiers gathered at the edge of the parking lot. Abu Thaher, who was shot an hour earlier, and was standing in the middle of the road, easily visible from the Border Police officers’ perch, could have been killed by either group.

I responded:

The CNN video doesn't only show two shots of rubber bullets - it has the sounds of the shots. The first two shots recorded sound the same and the first one corresponds with Nawara's falling down.

Are you saying that the Israeli police in the other area shot live fire at exactly the same time both times? That would be unbelievable.

The Guardian had also reported of another group of Israeli troops to the south with a clear line of sight. I have no reason to doubt that some border police were there are well. However, we conveniently don't have video of them to see what kind of weapons they were firing. Apparently the dozen or so journalists at the scene, all witnessing gunshots from two directions, didn't bother to photograph one of the groups of soldiers doing anything aggressive. Moreover, this theory would also assume that the CNN videographer, who would have definitely been able to tell the difference between gunshots straight ahead of him and shots from his left, ignored the actual source of the gunshots!

More to the point, however, is that if there really were Israeli shooters at this other location using live fire, and if every child in the West Bank can distinguish between live bullets and rubber bullets by sound, then the CCTV video makes no sense.

All of the people in the video use the building to the right (west) in the clear CCTV video as cover from being shot. Why would they remain in an exposed position where live bullets could kill them? Many times throughout the CCTV video we see them flinch and run for cover - always in the direction away from the "CNN shooters," closer to the building, never out of the line of sight of this new mysterious second group of Israelis that were supposedly shooting at them. They aren't nervously looking down the road, even in the footage after the first incident that supposedly came from the new southern position. They aren't seeking cover from these supposedly obvious sniper shots.

There is one exception: at 14:46:05 of the CCTV video  we see everyone run away at once from something, running north, but with no discernible flinching that a gunshot would generate.



It takes several minutes before people re-appear, many from inside the building. But no one ducked into the building as one would expect if they wanted to take cover as quickly as possible. Also, some of them ran into the street - into a more exposed position (other angle video) and not around the corner. My guess is that this quick evacuation was either a false alarm that someone shouted out or maybe the sound of a tear gas canister coming that way.

Notably, no one reacts this way during either of the alleged shooting incidents on video. If the shots came from this other position, the crowd would react very differently.

So this new theory has no objective evidence, and the lack of audio evidence in the CNN video makes it highly unlikely, at least in the case of Nawara. Even the video of the incident with Mohammed Thaer doesn't show anyone looking in the direction of, or taking cover from, the supposed mysterious second shooter with the completely different sounding bullets from the completely different position.

If Ben Ehrenfeld can dig up more video from his journalist buddies showing the second Israeli position, by all means, let's see it. But the CCTV footage shows nothing that would support this new theory, which at the moment sounds more like a conspiracy theory than anything that has solid evidence.

And it might be reasonable to be a little more skeptical about Palestinian eyewitness testimony.

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My challenge to the media reporting on Beitunia

Ok, I've stared at the videos and photos taken during "Nakba Day" for hours. I've read all the articles I can find. I've come up with my conclusions that there is no possible way that Nadeem Nawara was shot and killed by Israeli forces.

But CNN and the New York Times, showing far less diligence, have concluded that he was killed by Israeli live fire.

OK. I'm just an anonymous blogger, with a weird and ironic name. Why should my arguments - no matter how reproducible they are and taken from open sources - hold any weight with journalists who will only quote experts? It is not like CNN or the NYT will quote "Elder of Ziyon" as an expert. And - I'm not an expert. I just lay out my arguments and let people try to disprove them, and modify accordingly.

However, the mainstream media can do something I cannot: they can ask the real experts.

CNN, laughably, showed Nawara's father and the supposed "bullet" that killed Madeem, something which Israeli experts showed was completely impossible.  But neither CNN nor Robert Mackey bothered to contact any objective Western experts to easily identify the types of weapons used or the supposed bullet or to verify the story of the bullet hole in the backpack next to the bloodless exit wound.

So my challenge to the media is to find the experts and show them the videos and photos. Get hold of the head of New York's and Los Angeles' police forensics departments. Find military ballistics experts. And report what they say, even if they contradict what you have already reported. (Please don't go shopping for only the "experts" who verify your narrative. We know that trick.)

I'll be happy to bow to the experts showing me reasonable proof for how the youths are likely to have been killed by live fire. Do you, as real journalists, have the same intellectual integrity?

Or is your narrative more important than the truth?

Unfortunately, we know the answer. CNN has lots of footage of the day's events, but they only decided to release what they felt contradicted Israeli claims. They blew it. Yet their conscious decision was to only release what they thought supports the anti-Israel narrative, and nothing that shows how many holes it has.

Imagine the goldmine of information sitting in AFP's and AP's and CNN's archives, hours of video that could shed light on the truth rather than be cherry-picked to support a predetermined outcome!

There are a few real journalists out there, who have integrity. Let's hope that some of them start doing real research, dig up the full footage,  and talk to experts who have no reason to lie.

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The New York Times lies about Nakba Day shooting

From Robert Mackey of the NYT:

The Israeli military suspended a soldier who was captured on video this month firing his rifle at protesters in the occupied West Bank. Video evidence showed that the soldier fired his weapon within seconds of a Palestinian boy’s collapsing to the ground with what proved to be a fatal gunshot wound.

As the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported on Wednesday, the suspended soldier, seen in video recorded by a CNN producer, was a member of a communications unit assigned to document the work of combat troops and border police deployed to contain a demonstration in the West Bank town of Beitunia, near Israel’s Ofer Prison, on May 15. The CNN video appeared to show that another shot was fired by a police officer who was standing near the soldier on a hillside above the protesters.

Just seconds after those shots were fired, the CNN camera panned to show demonstrators and medics in a frantic scramble to evacuate the wounded protester, 17-year-old Nadeem Siam Nawara, who died a short time later.

...An Israeli security official who requested anonymity to comment on a continuing investigation told The Times that the soldier had been suspended from his position for firing his weapon without authorization. The official insisted, however, that the soldier had fired only rubber bullets, not live ammunition.

Doctors who examined the boys before their burials reported that they were both killed by gunshot wounds through their chests.

Mackey puts the "rubber bullet" claim as a dismissive footnote that is only believed by Israeli officials, but he says definitively that the Israeli shot "proved to be" fatal.  However, look at how Haaretz reported the story Mackey is basing his article on:

A probe into the deaths of two Palestinians killed in the West Bank village of Bitunia during a Nakba Day demonstration earlier this month took a dramatic turn on Wednesday, when a CNN video clip showed a non-combat soldier, who had accompanied his comrades on the mission, firing what appeared to be a rubber bullet during the incident.

The soldier, a member of an IDF communications division, apparently fired his bullet at around the same time that one of the Palestinians, Nadim Nuwara, 17, was killed. However, the IDF has found no evidence proving that this soldier's bullet caused Nuwara's death. The details of the case are under a military court gag order.

...The IDF has acknowledged that its troops fired rubber bullets during the incident – a fact confirmed by footage from both local security cameras and journalists. But the two Palestinians were apparently killed when they were relatively far away from the troops, which would seem to indicate that live fire was used. Yet the soldiers, officers and border policemen present at the scene have all denied that any live bullets were fired.

(The analysis done in the comments here show that the event indeed occurred within range of rubber bullets.)

Haaretz doesn't have to resort to "Israeli security officials" to see what anyone with eyes can see - that the CNN video shows a soldier shooting a rubber bullet at the time Nawara fell to the ground.

Mackey's "reporting" is editorial malfeasance.

I slightly modified my video synchronizing the CNN video and audio with the CCTV footage to make the first shot clearer and to be more explanatory:



More evidence that this was a rubber bullet comes from the anti-Israel side. (In fact, all the proof exculpating Israeli forces comes from images and video intended to do the opposite.)  A remarkable photo that apparently shows the second rubber bullet in flight was posted, I believe, on Mondoweiss, and reproduced in the comments here:

(At first I thought the object might simply be a hole in the door, but other photos show no such holes.)

The sounds of the first and second shots in the CNN video are virtually identical, meaning that they were from the same type of weapon, same type of ammunition and the same location. If this shows a rubber bullet (and it does appear to - no regular camera would catch a live bullet in flight like this and the shape is that of the rubber coated cylinder used by Israel) then the first shot that coincides with Nadeem's fall must also be a rubber bullet.

Now, there is no doubt that the Israeli border police have some serious issues to be addressed - why they apparently allowed someone to shoot who was not authorized, and why they shot rubber bullets at people who were not rioting or endangering anyone at the time. Not to mention that the person who shot the bullet against regulations was apparently from the IDF division that was supposed to be recording events like these specifically to prove what really happens when baseless accusations are leveled against Israeli forces.

There is plenty of blame to go around - but the evidence proves that Nadeem was not killed by Israeli live fire during the timeframe of these videos.  Of this there is no doubt. Even in the highly unlikely scenario that a simultaneous shot was fired from a mystery Israeli at the exact same time, we would hear the difference in sounds on the CNN audio.

What needs to be investigated is how he, or someone, really died, and that is a question that implies such a repugnant answer that no one wants to even contemplate it.

(h/t YMedad)

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