Palestinian Man Shot Dead At Checkpoint

The Israeli army issued a statement claiming the motorist failed to stop at a border checkpoint coming from the West Bank. "The driver ignored required security checks and accelerated away from the checkpoint", the army spokeswoman said. According to the statement, soldiers chased after the vehicle, which they found at a nearby gas station, and shot the man in the chest after Palestinians attempted to run the soldiers over.

The man was identified as Walid Rabi At-Tawil. Most likely he was a driver for Palestinian workers going inside Israel. At-Tawil was a resident of Sour Bahirnear, East Jerusalem so, unlike Palestinians in the West Bank, he could drive his car into Israel. No weapons were found in his vehicle.

According to a Reuters journalist there was a recent-model saloon car sitting on rough ground near the fuel station, having apparently been run off the road. Most of its windows were shot out. Some 20 cartridge cases had been marked by investigators on the garage forecourt.

According to witnesses, At-Tawil had been detained the previous day for two-and-a-half hours by the same officer that shot him the next day. The same witnesses stated that At-Tawil was stationary at the gas station when a military jeep pulled in. The officer demanded At-Tawil’s ID card, struck him and ordered him to follow the military jeep. A short distance later soldiers began firing at the car, at which point At-Tawil attempted to flee, but did not manage to escape.

Unfortunately, this particular shooting is not an isolated incident: shootings, beatings and harrassment accompany the approximately 700 checkpoints scattered around the occupied Territories, and Israel routinely cites ‘security’ as the reason when Palestinians are killed.

Betar Illit is a Jewish settlement, which lies about half a kilometer from Israel’s border on the western side of the wall. It is the fastest-growing settlement, with a higher birthrate than any other in the West Bank or Israel and it is home to some 35,000 predominantly ultra-Orthodox settlers. Commonly the settlements are protected by Israeli soldiers or private security guards. Every year, Palestinians are shot by Israeli snipers, whenever they are close to settlements strongholds.

Walid Rabi At-Tawil was buried in a Muslim cemetary, next to the walls of Jerusalem’s old city on September 23, 2009. An Israeli court ruled that only 25 people could accompany his body at the mosque for a religious pre-burial ceremony and only 75 people could attend his funeral.