An Israeli Border Policeman was videotaped shooting Palestinian activist Manal Tamimi in the leg with a rubber-coated bullet from very close range in the Palestinian village of Nabi Saleh on Friday.
According to Manal’s husband Bilal Tamimi, who shot the video, and a report from the Palestine News Network, the border policeman was no more than a few meters from Manal when he shot her in her knee region, reportedly causing a fracture to her bone from the impact. Tamimi told +972 they also tried to break his camera.
In the video below you can see the unarmed Manal walking up to the armed Israeli forces when one of them shoots her from what appears to be a frighteningly close distance. It is unclear what threat she was posing that would warrant the use of firearms.
Israeli forces shot large amounts of tear gas, sound bombs, skunk water and rubber-coated bullets at protesters in the village, according to several reports. In addition to Manal, two journalists were lightly injured and a girl was taken to the hospital after being hit with skunk water. Several homes and other property were damaged as a result.
Earlier this month, the IDF closed an investigation into the killing of Mustafa Tamimi, who was shot in the face with a tear gas canister from only a few meters in 2011. In its decision to close the investigation into that deadly shooting, the army claimed that no regulations were breached during the incident and accepted the soldier’s testimony that he didn’t see the victim when shooting from the military jeep.
Our team has been devastated by the horrific events of this latest war – the atrocities committed by Hamas in Israel and the massive retaliatory Israeli attacks on Gaza. Our hearts are with all the people and communities facing violence.
We are in an extraordinarily dangerous era in Israel-Palestine. The bloodshed unleashed by these events has reached extreme levels of brutality and threatens to engulf the entire region. Hamas’ murderous assault in southern Israel has devastated and shocked the country to its core. Israel’s retaliatory bombing of Gaza is wreaking destruction on the already besieged strip and killing a ballooning number of civilians. Emboldened settlers in the West Bank, backed by the army, are seizing the opportunity to escalate their attacks on Palestinians.
This escalation has a very clear context, one that +972 has spent the past 13 years covering: Israeli society’s growing racism and militarism, the entrenched occupation, and an increasingly normalized siege on Gaza.
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