Jew World Order

Israeli prosecutors filed an indictment against a border police officer for his role in the fatal shooting of Eyad al-Hallaq, a 32-year-old Palestinian man with autism, in the Old City of occupied East Jerusalem in 2020. 

The border police officer, who remained unidentified, was charged with reckless manslaughter, which can carry a maximum sentence of 12 years in prison. The indictment comes a little over one year after al-Hallaq was killed while on his way to school on May 30, 2020.

According to reports the unit for investigating police misconduct said in the indictment that the killing of al-Hallaq was a “serious and unfortunate incident” and the officer shot him “while he took an unreasonable risk that he would cause his death”.

The indictment also detailed how the accused officer shot al-Hallaq in the stomach while the latter was cornered with his back against a wall, and shot him a second time in the stomach after he was lying on the ground wounded. 

According to testimony of al-Hallaq’s family and one of the sole witnesses to the shooting, al-Hallaq’s school teacher, Israeli police officers called for al-Hallaq to stop while he was on his way to school in the early hours of the morning. 

Al-Hallaq, who was reportedly frightened by the police, ran away from the officers at which point they started shooting at him. Al-Hallaq then ran into a garbage storage area and curled up next to a bin before he was shot twice by the officer. 

Haaretz reported that the police officers in the area initially “suspected that al-Hallaq was a terrorist” because he was wearing black gloves and a black face mask — which was not unusual given that it was just a few months into the COVID-19 pandemic — and “stopped several times and looked back as he was walking.”

The officer also reportedly “claimed that he feared being shot” because al-Hallaq had made a “suspicious move,” and had run into a closed space, which “increased his suspicion that he was a terrorist,” Haaretz reported. 

The indictment noted that after the border police officer fired the first shot into al-Hallaq’s stomach, one of the officers asked al-Hallaq where his weapon was, to which the wounded al-Hallaq mumbled and pointed to his teacher who was at the scene. 

His teacher reportedly responded to officers asking “what gun?” before the officer fired the second fatal shot to al-Hallaq’s chest. 

Shortly after her son’s killing last year, Ranad al-Hallaq recounted similar events to Mondoweiss, saying that her son was “curled up in fear” hiding behind the dumpster, crying “I’m with her, I’m with her,” pointing to his teacher. 

“She saw what was happening and was yelling at the police to stop, saying that he has special needs,” Ranad said, referring to al-Hallaq’s teacher. “But they didn’t stop, and kept yelling ‘terrorist!’ in Hebrew.”

No faith in the Israeli justice system

The killing of Eyad al-Hallaq caused widespread outrage in Palestine and across the world at the time, as many people likened his killing to that of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers just three days earlier. 

Protests and vigils for both al-Hallaq and Floyd popped up across Palestine, with people expressing solidarity between the Palestinian cause and Black Lives Matter. 

For Palestinians, the killing of al-Hallaq served as a harsh reminder of the reality of living as a Palestinian under occupation. Palestinians, especially in Jerusalem, face over-policing in their neighborhoods, unwarranted stops and searches by police, and an excessive use of force at the hands of Israeli authorities. 

Many Palestinians expressed their anger over the fact that they believed al-Hallaq was wrongfully profiled because he was Palestinian, and that officers killed him under the mere suspicion that he was a “terrorist”, though he did not attack anyone and was later proved to be unarmed. 

Following al-Hallaq’s killing, Israeli human rights group B’Tselem compiled a list of at least 11 Palestinians who were killed over the past few years while they were fleeing Israeli forces. 

In most cases, B’Tselem noted that the victims, who posed no threat to the forces at the time, were shot in the back. 

Adalah — The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel has previously condemned Israeli police and security forces for not following appropriate open-fire procedures, say that the “absolute immunity” that officers receive in investigations of misconduct results in “very light trigger fingers amongst both police officers and private security guards when it comes to Arabs.”

Israel rarely holds Israeli soldiers and security officers accountable for the killing of Palestinians, with investigations often being closed with no charges being filed, or lenient sentences, as was the case with Israeli soldier Elor Azaria, who famously carried out the “extrajudicial execution” of a Palestinian man in Hebron in 2016, and only served half of his 18 month sentence before being freed. 

Notably, in the case of al-Hallaq’s killing, Israeli authorities claimed that there was no security footage from the morning of the killing, despite the fact that, as Haaretz noted, “there are no fewer than 10 private and security cameras in the 150 meters between the Old City’s Lions Gate, where the chase began, and the garbage room where al-Hallaq was shot to death.”

On the contrary, in cases where Palestinians are shot and killed after allegedly carrying out attacks on Israeli soldiers, Israeli authorities are often quick to release security-camera footage to the public, as was the case with  the shooting of Ahmed Erekat in 2020 and the killing of Munir Anabtawi earlier this year

Following Thursday’s indictment the al-Hallaq family’s attorneys said that while this was “an important step,” the charge of reckless manslaughter was “not sufficient to achieve even a small part of justice.”

Palestinian MK and head of the Joint List Ayman Odeh tweeted his disapproval over the indictment, saying that justice for Eyad al-Hallaq will be “the end of the occupation.”

Meanwhile, al-Hallaq’s father told reporters”we want justice for our son,” and asked “Why is it that when an Arab kills they say he is a murderer, and when an Israeli kills they say reckless manslaughter?”

Last year, Ranad al-Hallaq told Mondoweiss that she lacked faith in the Israeli justice system, saying “I don’t think Eyad’s case will be treated any differently than all the other Palestinians who were wrongfully killed and got no justice from the Israeli occupation.”

“The Israeli police and occupation are always covering up their crimes,” she said. 

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