TITLE: We Accuse

AUTHOR: Ori Nir

PUB: Ha'aretz

DATE: January 22, 2001

The Arab public in Israel yesterday submitted its charges against Israel's law-enforcement authorities concerning their behavior during the violent events at the beginning of October 2000. The collective J'accuse by the Arab citizens of Israel was submitted to the state commission of inquiry, which is investigating the events, by representatives of the Arab Monitoring Committee, the families of the riot victims and the young lawyers of the Adalah organization, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel. The accusations are organized in files replete with testimony and evidence that document the circumstances of the killing of the 13 Arabs by the security forces. "Our findings lead to a clear accusation that the security forces did not behave according to the minimal rules of human rights," says the director-general of Adalah, Hassan Jabareen. "They conducted themselves with exaggerated self-confidence that indicates backing - if not explicit orders - for their behavior from the government echelons." These actions, notes Jabareen, included among other things sharpshooter fire with live ammunition. "The use of sharpshooters indicates planning," explains Jabareen.During the months that have elapsed since the bloody week between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, the Adalah people have gathered a great deal of testimony and evidence surrounding the circumstances of the lethal shooting by the police and Border Police at Arab demonstrators in the Galilee and in the area of Wadi Ara. All the evidence was submitted yesterday to the commission of inquiry headed by Supreme Court Justice Theodor Orr. In effect, this is the Arab public's collective, quasi-official version of the events in which the casualties fell, as the material was submitted under the aegis of the Arab Monitoring Commission, which appointed Adalah to coordinate the interests of the Arab public and represent it to the commission. Adalah has shared the material with Ha'aretz, and it was given to the newspaper for publication along with its submission to the commission of inquiry. From three of the files submitted to the commission yesterday (material from the other files will be published in Ha'aretz in the future) emerges a grave picture of unprofessional and undisciplined, and sometimes unrestrained, conduct by police and Border Police personnel. They and those who sent them will have to answer many disturbing questions when the commission's public deliberations begin, apparently in another two weeks. Shooting at Jatt Rami Jarrah, 21, a worker in the vegetable market in Tel Aviv, was killed on October 1 by a rubber-covered metal bullet that penetrated his left eye at the entrance to the village of Jatt. The bullet entered his skull and caused his death. The pathology report has not been given to his family, which has requested it. At the Institute for Forensic medicine they are saying that they are not authorized to give a family a death report that is the subject of an investigation, and the unit for the investigation of the police at the Justice Ministry, which is conducting the investigation, refuses to reveal the contents of the report. Lawyer Suhad Hammoud of Adalah says that the unit's refusal in this matter is an example of the lack of cooperation by state bodies with the organization's investigators. Not only pathology reports, but medical files havealso not been handed over to the families or the wounded. The village of Jatt in the northern triangle is located between the town of Baka al Gharbiya and the Green Line (the 1967 border). The entrance to it is from the road that connects Baka al Gharbiya and Kibbutz Magal (Route 574). On the road into Jatt, about 150 meters from the junction, is a gas station, where there are two cafes. Rami Jarrah was wounded near one of these cafes. The clashes between young people of the village and the security forces personnel began during the early afternoon. As in other Arab locales, on that day a protest march was held there against Likud MK Ariel Sharon's visit to the Al Aqsa compound and the killing in the territories. When the procession organized by the local council ended, the demonstrators dispersed. A few young people went out and burnt tires at the entrance to the village near the gas station. The cafes at the gas station were open, and many inhabitants were sitting there. One of them was Rami Jarrah, who had gone to pass the time at the cafe with two friends. Jarrah, and about another 30 villagers, went out of the cafe and stood in the gas station compound to watch what was happening. They saw that the access road to the village was blocked with a garbage container, burning tires and rocks, and how the demonstrators were cursing and throwing stones at the policemen. At a certain stage, the young people rolled a burning tire in the direction of the police, who managed to avoid it. Immediately thereafter three police in khaki uniforms, apparently Border Police, advanced on the demonstrators. One of them stood under the cafe area. Shots were heard. Jarrah, who was standing among the cafe patrons, fell wounded. He died of his injuries the following day at Ichilov Hospital. According to witnesses, none of the cafe patrons, including Jarrah, entered into conflict with the police or participated in the disturbance. Immediately after the shooting the police retreated and drove away. The testimony surrounding the incident at Jatt give rise to a number of penetrating questions: Why did the police not call upon the demonstrators to disperse? Why did they not use tear gas or fire in the air before they fired rubber-covered bullets? Why did they fire at a person who apparently had not taken part in the demonstration? The police version of the incident - or at least the version of the Border Police commander at the junction - incidentally came into the hands of the Adalah investigators and reinforced some of these questions. (In the other cases, the investigators did not have access to security forces findings and testimony). A lawyer who investigated the circumstances of Jarrah's death on behalf of Adalah, veteran attorney Anis Riad, is the attorney for a young man named Muhammad al Jamal, a resident of Jatt, who was arrested in connection with the disturbances in the village that day. Al Jamal's trial is now before the Hadera Magistrates' Court. On the 10th of this month, less than two weeks ago, the prosecution summoned Chief Inspector Said Abu Rish, who was in command of the force at the junction that day, to testify. Abu Rish described a situation of confrontation with stone-throwing youngsters who stood about a hundred meters away from the junction and occasionally approached the police forces at the junction to a distance of about 20 or 30 meters away. Chief Inspector Abu Rish confirmed that his people did not use tear gas or call upon the demonstrators to disperse, not did they fire warning shots into the air before firing the rubber-covered bullets. Although there were loudspeakers in their vehicles, no use was made of them because "as the life of policemen is threatened, there was no time to deal with making announcements." According to him, the danger to the lives of the police was evident every time the demonstrators approached the junction, as well as when they rolled a burning tire towards it. The police had instructions from the commander of the Northern Brigade of the Border Police "to prevent people from reaching the junction, to prevent damage to persons and property, at any price, until our lives are really endangered," according to Abu Rish. "If they get to the junction and block it, I have to get the people away, depending on circumstances, with all the means at my disposal." At any price, with all the available means, said Abu Rish. His testimony raised other questions: Had there indeed been an order to distance the demonstrators "at any price" from the junction of Route 574, which in any case was closed at the time? Were "all means" indeed employed before the rubber-covered bullets were fired? Arrabe The circumstances of the deaths of Ala Nassar (22) and Asil Asleh (17) of the village of Arrabe are perhaps the most disturbing of all the cases of the killing of Israeli Arab citizens by the security forces during the October disturbances. Here, according to local residents' testimony, the shooting was directed, from zero distance, apparently with live ammunition - shooting that, according to the discriptions, seemed to have been with the intent to kill. The incident occurred at the northern entrance to Arrabe on October 2, when a group of young men went out to confront police at 11:00 A.M. The conflict lasted for some time, as the demonstrators cursed the police, threw stones at them and burnt tires. The police, some of them in the khaki uniforms of the Border Police and some in the blue uniforms of the police, used tear gas and rubber-covered bullets to try to disperse the demonstrators, but in vain. After three hours a helicopter appeared, which circled above the demonstrators several times, and immediately after the helicopter left, an olive drab Jeep or van appeared, on which the words "Village Patrol" were written. According to Misgav Local Council spokeswoman Sharon Tsafrir, the "Village Patrol" is in fact a squad of Border Police fighters engaged in routine security missions around the Misgav settlements, mostly the prevention of agricultural thievery, trespassing or property damage. This is a small force - about a dozen fighters - who are familiar with the area and especially the areas of friction between the Jewish settlements in Misgav and the neighboring Arab locales. According to the testimonies, three police armed with rifles wearing grey khaki uniforms and peaked caps, leapt from the Jeep and chased a group of boys who were hiding in an olive grove west of the road. A number of other police took up positions on the western side of the road, hiding behind triangular shields. The three policemen, according to the testimonies, caught up with a few demonstrators who had fled from them, and opened fire, which caused the deaths of the two young men. One witness, A.A. (his full name is known to the editors), testified that he saw with his own eyes how one policeman caught up with Asil Asleh, who fell on the ground and then "they shot him as he was lying there." The witness stresses: "Asil tried to run away from the policemen into the grove of trees. They chased him and shot him at close range. I am testifying in this context because I was in constant eye contact with Asil, from the moment I arrived at the site, through the arrival of the three police to the act of shooting him, and I would like to emphasize that there had been no act of violence of any sort against the police on Asil's part - everything I have said is eye-witness testimony, and up close, and the entire action from the moment I noticed the police Jeep to the arrival of the policemen and the shooting of Asil occurred before my eyes." Asleh, an outstanding 12th-grade student and a member of the Seeds of Peace youth movement, was killed before the very eyes of his father, Hassan, who gave Adalah investigators a detailed and moving statement. He saw his son sitting and watching events, but not participating in the stone-throwing, according to him. He saw the Jeep arrive at great speed, the policemen getting out, some of them taking up positions along the road and the three others chasing after the demonstrators.According to his testimony, his son had been sitting with his back to the police, and apparently did not notice them. "I shouted at him to get up and come back, toward me. I saw that he heard me and was beginning to get up, but at that moment three of the men in khaki uniforms who were running after the demonstrators got close to him - I saw Asil run about ten meters in the direction of the trees, and then I saw the three in uniform catch up with him and surround him. Then I saw how one of them raised his rifle and hit Asil on the back with the rifle butt. From the force of the blow Asil fell forward on the ground among the trees. I could not see him any more, but I heard him cry 'Father, father.' A few seconds later I heard a shot ring out from among the trees, and I saw the three uniformed men leave the scene." Hassan Asleh understood his son had been injured and fainted. After a hellish trip to a clinic in Sakhnin and from there to the hospital in Nahariya, Hassan and Jamila Asleh were informed that their son had been killed by a bullet in the head area. The hospital released the body to the family without an autopsy. The police, apparently, did not bother to request from the hospital that it retain the body for an autopsy, nor did it ask the family to authorize an autopsy, contrary to the procedure in cases of unnatural death. The agitated family hasten to bury its loved one and did not consider the value of an autopsy. Adalah is now weighing a request to disinter Asleh's body for an autopsy. The testimonies concerning the circumstances of the death of Aala Nassar are very similar but less clear. He fled from the armed police into the same olive grove, where he was wounded and then died of his injuries. An eye-witness, K.B. (whose name is known to the editors), saw how Nassar ran, stood among some boulders and fell as a shot rang out. It is not clear who shot him and why. However, the testimonies regarding the circumstances of the shooting that caused his death, like the testimonies about Asleh, indicate that Nassar had not endangered the lives of policemen. No autopsy was performed on his body either. The casualties at Arrabe, according to the testimonies, were killings that occurred when the the police stopped confronting the demonstrators from afar with the help of non-lethal means to disperse demonstrations, and moved from a situation of static confrontation to attack. The khaki-uniformed personnel in the "Village Patrol" Jeep, according to the depositions, attacked with the intention of doing harm. They did not try to carry out arrests, even though apparently they had succeeded in catching up with some of the demonstrators, and they did not help transport the injured from the scene. The testimonies from Arrabe on the results of this attack are very detailed and very grave. Presumably the commission of inquiry will investigate them thoroughly. END top