CCTV shows ‘Palestinian boy shot dead by Israeli sniper was unarmed’
CCTV footage has emerged showing the moment a 16-year-old Palestinian boy – supposedly unarmed – was shot and killed by an Israeli sniper during Jenin’s military operation last week.
The video now appears to contradict Israel’s claims that only militant fighters were killed during the intensive search for weapons in the Jenin refugee camp.
Abdulrahman Hasan Ahmad Hardan was killed standing in front of al-Amal Hospital, which is located outside the camp. He had responded to a call from his local mosque to donate blood.
The boy was killed just after noon last week on the second day of Israel’s raid on the camp, which in recent years has acted as a hub for Iranian-funded armed Palestinian militants.
The CCTV video shows Abdulrahman appearing empty-handed as he looks down the street. The boy sinks to the ground after appearing to be shot by an Israeli sniper.
The CCTV footage shows Abdulrahman (center), clearly empty-handed, looking down the street
The boy (center) sinks to the ground after appearing to have been shot by an Israeli sniper
“My son hadn’t even turned 17 yet,” Abdulrahman’s mother, Kifaya Hardan, said. The times from their family home in the West Bank.
“The occupation killed him cold-bloodedly, accusing him of taking part in armed confrontations. He didn’t have a gun on him or anything. He was a child,’ she explained.
The mother told The Times that Abdulrahman had used public transport to go to the hospital to donate blood. She said she had no reason to think he would be in any danger as the surgery took place in the refugee camp, where the hospital was not located.
She then said that she cried as she rushed to Jenin after finding out that Abdulrahman had been shot and killed.
“He was an ordinary boy, he was not a terrorist as they say,” the mother told The Times. “Every Palestinian is a terrorist in their eyes, armed or not.”
A friend of the 17-year-old had told the family that he warned Abdulrahman to get out of the way after he said he saw the Israeli sniper.
The Times tracked down CCTV footage from a shop next to the hospital which showed he was unarmed.
Before the video was shown by the publication, the Israeli military attempted to claim that the boy was carrying an automatic weapon when he was shot.
Smoke rises from homes in a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin on July 3, 2023, following an Israeli attack
Smoke rises during an Israeli military attack on the Jenin militant stronghold in the occupied West Bank, July 3
Paramedics take an injured man to a hospital in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin on July 3, 2023, after an Israeli strike. The Israeli army said on July 3, 2023 it attacked targets in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin in a “widespread counter-terrorism effort”
Israel has maintained that all 12 Palestinians killed in the operation were combatants. It has since been revealed that four of the 12 killed were under the age of 18.
However, Israel hailed its intensive weapons search last week as a success, destroying a bomb factory and a militant commando and seizing weapons.
Israel Defense Force international spokesman Lt. Col. Richard Hecht told The Times that Abdulrahman “was not a child.” He said the boy was 17, despite his official ID showing he was 16 when he was killed – three weeks after turning 17. This would still have made him a child under Israeli and international law.
The Times reported that Hecht quoted a social media post from an Islamic Jihad claiming he was a fighter. However, Palestinian militant groups have regularly claimed that the deaths of Palestinians are martyrs.
The spokesman claimed he was armed with an ‘automatic rifle’.
After the video was shown, The Times said the Israeli Defense Force was unable to provide them with comment.
Some militant groups brought banners to the family’s house celebrating him as a martyr, where the boy’s family expressed their displeasure and insisted that he was not a militant.
View of tires set on fire in a street after a Palestinian was killed during an Israeli military operation, in Jenin, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, July 3, 2023
Palestinian armed militants fire at Israeli armored vehicles in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin on July 3, 2023
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in the Israeli-occupied West Bank July 3, 2023
It comes as Israeli forces shot and killed an alleged Palestinian gunman on Monday amid renewed unrest in the West Bank, while a wave of violence in the occupied territory showed no signs of slowing down.
The Israeli army said troops detained a motorist in Deir Nidham, a town west of Ramallah, to question him. It said the man got out of his car, threw a grenade and fired shots at soldiers, who then opened fire.
The Palestinian Health Ministry confirmed that a 33-year-old man had been killed, but did not provide further details.
The Jenin refugee camp operation has now been followed by more bloodshed, including a shooting by a Palestinian attacker that left an Israeli soldier dead. An Israeli military raid killed two militants, while a third Palestinian was killed later in the day during a demonstration in the central West Bank.
Israel has been conducting ramped-up raids into Palestinian territories since spring 2022 in response to a spate of Palestinian attacks. Violence has intensified this year, increasing the death toll on both sides. Since the beginning of the year, more than 150 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire, while at least 26 people have been killed in Palestinian attacks on Israelis.
Israel says most of the dead are militants. But stone-throwing youths who protested against the raids and others who were not involved in the confrontations have also been killed.
Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East War, areas the Palestinians want for their hoped-for independent state.