Adalah Statement on the Killing of Kheir Hamdan by Israeli Police
Adalah: The policemen who executed Kheir Hamdan from Kufr Kana should be suspended immediately, a criminal investigation should be opened under the supervision of the Attorney General, and those responsible for the killing should be brought to trial. Adalah sees a direct connection between the execution of Hamdan and the statements made last week by Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovich.
On the evening of 7 November 2014, a 22 year-old Palestinian citizen of Israel, Kheir Hamdan, was killed by an Israeli police unit in the Arab town of Kufr Kanna, located in the Galilee area in the north of Israel. The incident was captured on video by a nearby CCTV camera.
It is clear from the video footage that the shooting of Hamdan was an execution, as Hamdan did not pose an immediate threat to the lives of the police officers when they shot him. Hamdan approached the officers’ van and banged on the windows with an object. The officers then opened the door of the van, got out and shot him from close range as he tried to run away from the scene, without giving any prior warning such as firing a shot into the air. The officers’ actions’ clearly violate the open fire regulations of the police. The video also raises suspicion that the police shot Hamdan again after he was injured and had fallen to the ground. Furthermore, the police dragged Hamdan’s body in a humiliating manner while he was bleeding and threw him into the police van, as if they were carrying a meaningless object, instead of calling on rescue teams to save him.
Following the killing, the Chairman of Adalah’s Board of Directors, Attorney Hussein Abu Hussein, stated: “After the execution occurred, the police rushed to publish a false statement about the details of the incident, but later it became clear that cameras had documented the incident, showing that the police narrative was false and fabricated. The execution of Kheir Hamdan proves again that the police did not learn its lessons from the October 2000 events, when the Commission of Inquiry led by former Justice Theodor Or concluded that the Israeli police treats Arab citizens as if they are enemies, and which prohibited this type of shooting without warning by the police and its use of deadly weapons.”
Attorney Abu Hussein added: “The experience of Arab citizens proves that the Israeli Police Investigation Unit (“Mahash”) will not seriously investigate an incident of an Arab citizen’s murder at the hands of the police, and will not take those responsible for the killing to trial. Therefore, we demand that all the police officers in the unit that killed Kheir Hamdan be suspended immediately, a criminal investigation be opened under the supervision of the Attorney General, and those responsible for the killing be brought to trial.”
Adalah sees a direct connection between the execution of Kheir Hamdan and the statements made last week by Israeli Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovich. The Minister stated that anyone who attacks Israeli Jewish citizens should be killed immediately. In any democratic society that respects the life of its citizens, any government minister that makes statements such as those by Yitzhak Aharonovich should be immediately dismissed.
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