Unique Israeli Evils #1: Leaving Palestinians to bleed to death

Israelis love shooting Palestinians then stopping any help from reaching them until they bleed to death.

This article is the first in the Unique Israeli Evils, a new series on Palestine Will Be Free where I will be writing about crimes that are exclusive to the Israelis. You won’t find examples of such depravity and criminality in any other country/war zone/society; these are truly unique Israeli evils.

On December 15, 2023, the Israelis bombed Farhana school in Khan Younis, Gaza, where Al Jazeera’s head of Gaza bureau Wael Al-Dahdouh and his cameraman Samer Abudaqa had just wrapped up filming the aftermath of an Israeli bombardment in the area that had killed at least 20 people. The targeted bombing left the two journalists severely injured. Wael, whose arm was bleeding profusely, managed to get to an ambulance for medical aid, but Samer was hurt in his leg and couldn’t move. Wael pleaded with the ambulance staff to go in and rescue Samer. Wael was assured that his cameraman would be attended to by another ambulance crew, but first he had to be taken to a hospital.

But that wouldn’t be. While Samer lay profusely bleeding as a result of the bombing, the Israelis shot at anything and anyone that moved in his direction for help. When they finally allowed an ambulance crew to attend to him and a bulldozer to clear the way for the ambulance to move in — because they had reduced the path leading to the school to rubble — Samer had bled for over five hours and was dead.

An investigation by The Intercept in January revealed that the occupation military knew that Samer was in critical condition, but they refused to facilitate his rescue until he was dead:

The Israeli military were well aware that an Al Jazeera journalist was lying helpless, The Intercept’s reporting shows, yet it did not allow emergency teams to safely pass for nearly four hours and did not send a bulldozer for over an hour after that.

The Intercept’s investigation showed that the Jerusalem-based journalist collective, Foreign Press Association (FPA), which at the time comprised over 140 members from more than 30 countries, pleaded with the highest officials in the Israeli military, including the two spokespersons of the Israeli occupation forces, Daniel Hagari and Richard Hecht, but to no avail.

The report went on to add:

In parallel, a more focused effort by a smaller group of more senior FPA members was yielding responses from the army, but no real action.

To make matters worse:

Al Jazeera reported that Abu Daqqa had been subjected to continued shelling while he tried to crawl to safety.

In short, Samer was assassinated with the full complicity of the Israeli state, which ensured that there would be no chance of him surviving by denying him critical aid for over five long hours as he lay dying.

A pattern of Israeli brutality

Samer’s case is not an aberration. The method of his killing is one that Palestinians are well aware of because they have seen it play out countless times with their compatriots.

In one of the most horrifying videos of the ongoing Israeli genocide, I witnessed a slender boy, likely around around 8 or 9 years old, lying on a road in the aftermath of a bombing. His right leg was blown off at the knee, leaving him in shock and in no position to move. As the camera zoomed in on his face from a distance — the cameraman (or anyone else) was unable to move near the boy as there was constant firing in the vicinity — his eyes appeared wide open. He was still breathing, but was too weak and in shock to able to do much else. He couldn’t speak, but it appeared he was just waiting for the angel of death to come take him.

There have been many documented cases of killings like that of Samer and the aforementioned unnamed boy since the Israelis fast-forwarded their genocide of Palestinians last October. Back in March, two brothers Amr and Muhammad Al Farra were shot to death by the sadistic Israelis when they went to inspect their house in Khan Younis.

Muhammad filmed the execution:

While Amr was lucky to have a swift death, Quds News Network reported that Muhammad “was left to bleed for 24 hours until he died.”

A regular form of killing in the West Bank

Since the Israelis left their illegal settlements in Gaza in 2005, they could no longer administer this form of gruesome killing to the residents of the besieged enclave. However, this inhuman brutality has been one of the hallmarks of their barbaric occupation of the West Bank. There, they kill Palestinians as if they were hunting game, leaving them to suffer for hours before dying. Additionally, their fellow Israelis watch from afar, recording videos of the suffering Palestinians as if it were an iconic sporting event.

While the spotlight since October 7 has rightly been on Gaza, the West Bank has witnessed over 500 Palestinian killings since that fateful day. And true to form, the Israelis have continued to leave Palestinians bleeding to their gruesome deaths.

Here’s a small snapshot of such sadistic killings since October 7:

Majd Shaher Arameen in Hebron (May 26, 2024) :

Israeli occupation authorities inform Palestinian Civil Affairs that 14-year-old Majd Shaher Arameen, a Palestinian child, was killed by their forces near the town of Sa’ir, northeast of Hebron.

Palestinian eyewitnesses report that Israeli soldiers shot Majd multiple times while he was on the ground and prevented ambulances or residents from treating him, ultimately leaving him to bleed to death as they watched.

Aysar Safi in Ramallah (May 15, 2024):

Reports confirm that Aysar Safi, the Palestinian youth shot near Ramallah, has succumbed to his wounds.

Safi is a student at Birzeit University from the Jalazone refugee camp in Ramallah, he was shot by the Israeli occupation near the Israeli Beit El settlement checkpoint, north of Ramallah. Left to bleed, Israeli soldiers prevented medical teams from reaching him until he died.

Wadee’ Oweisat in Jerusalem (February 5, 2024)

[I]n Jerusalem area, the Israeli soldiers executed a child near the entrance of Al-Eizariya village east of Jerusalem. The child, Wadee’ Oweisat, 14 years old from Jabal Al-Mukaber in Jerusalem, was shot and left bleeding to death.

Long history of Palestinians left bleeding to death

In one of the most egregious cases of this form of Palestinian slaughter, the Israelis killed Hadeel al-Hashlamon, an 18-year-old girl at a checkpoint in Hebron in occupied West Bank on September 22, 2015.

The last moments of her young life captured on film showed that as she lay dying, the Zionist occupation didn’t just deny her medical attention, but brutally dragged her away from the sight of the filming cameras:

To justify their Palestinian hunting game, the perpetually lying Israelis concoct stories about their victims reaching for a knife or — or other such weapons — to stab the occupation soldiers. Appallingly, the Israelis have even planted weapons next to the dead Palestinians to justify their lies.

More often than not, however, eyewitnesses and human rights organisations have contradicted the Israeli claims.

In an October 2015 report titled Israeli forces in Occupied Palestinian Territories must end pattern of unlawful killings, Amnesty International recounted a story where a knife was allegedly planted on a Palestinian to justify his cold-blooded execution:

In an especially egregious case, Israeli forces shot dead 19-year-old Sa’ad Muhammad Youssef al-Atrash in the Old City of Hebron as he attempted to retrieve an ID card at an Israeli soldier’s request on 26 October. The Israeli police labelled the incident an “attempted stabbing” but an eyewitness watching the events unfold from her balcony said he had posed no threat when he was shot. One of the soldiers had asked him for ID, and as he reached into his pocket to grab his card another soldier standing behind him shot him on his right side, she told Amnesty International. The eyewitness said he was shot six or seven times and bled profusely as he lay on the ground for about 40 minutes afterwards, while soldiers failed to provide medical treatment. She also reported seeing soldiers bring a knife and place it in the dying man’s hand [Emphasis added].   

Even if the victims possess weapons, they still have a right to medical attention under laws prohibiting torture and other ill-treatment.

In the case of Hadeel, however, both Amnesty International as well as Israeli human rights organisation, B’Tselem, concluded that although the young girl carried a knife, she posed no threat to the Israelis before she was executed in cold blood.

Amnesty International reported:

Pictures of the stand-off that led to her death and accounts by eyewitnesses interviewed by Amnesty International show that she at no time posed a sufficient threat to the soldiers to make their use of deliberate lethal force permissible. This killing is the latest in a long line of unlawful killings carried out by the Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank with near total impunity.

The B’Tselem report on Hadeel’s execution concluded that there’s absolutely nothing in the Israeli law and its military doctrine that would bar their soldiers from hunting Palestinians for fun:

The military command’s knee jerk defense of the soldiers, as expressed in the military’s response to the incident, sends soldiers on the ground a clear message that when it comes to using force, including lethal force, against Palestinian civilians – there are very little limitations.

Not just Hadeel

While Hadeel’s extra judicial killing received some coverage at the time, by no means is her case unique, as the long list of Israelis letting Palestinians bleed to their deaths makes clear.

Here are some more examples from the West Bank over the years:

June 24, 2023 (Qalandia military checkpoint, north of Jerusalem):

A young Palestinian was left to bleed to death following a shooting attack at Qalandia military checkpoint, north of Jerusalem, according to witnesses and Israeli reports. [Source]

June 10, 2023 (Rantis checkpoint, Ramallah):

Israeli occupation forces opened fire at a Palestinian man near Rantis Checkpoint, west of the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, and left him bleeding to death Palestinian sources said. [Source]

May 25, 2021 (Umm al-Sharayit, Ramallah):

Ahmad Jamil Fahd, from al-Amari refugee camp, was shot by the Musta’ribeen unit in the Umm al-Sharayit area, Palestinian witnesses said, and was left to bleed to death before an ambulance could arrive. [Source]

Israeli military personnel covering Ahmad Erekat’s body after their gruesome deed.

February 24, 2021 (Container checkpoint, Bethlehem):

The killing of Palestinian Ahmad Erekat at an Israeli checkpoint on his sister’s wedding day last year was an “extrajudicial execution”, a human rights research group has said.

Erekat’s killing sparked widespread outcry in June when a video of the incident showed him exiting his vehicle in the occupied West Bank and backing away from soldiers, with his hands up, when he was shot.

A new investigation by London-based rights group Forensic Architecture (FA) has found that Erekat, 26, was shot six times - three while on the floor - then denied medical attention while still moving despite posing no threat to the heavily armed Israeli soldiers. [Source]

March 4, 2014 (Gaza border):

An unarmed Palestinian child was gravely wounded and left without medical attention for three hours after Israeli soldiers opened fire on him at the Gaza border. [Source]

April 22, 2007 (Karem Shalom Crossing):

IOF troops have shot and wounded on Sunday morning Palestinian minor Kareem Salem Zahran 15 and left him to bleed to death Palestinian sources affirmed. [Source]

September 22, 2002 (Balata, Nablus):

Israeli forces opened fire and wounded Riyad Alhashash (19), a resident of Balata refugee camp, with a bullet in his head. Israeli forces prevented access to ambulances to Balata refugee camp. Alhashash was left bleeding to death. [Source]

This is just a brief snapshot of dozens of such killings by the Israelis over the years of their illegal, barbaric occupation of Palestine.

The aftermath of Shireen Abu Akleh’s killing by the Israelis.

The killing of Shireen Abu Akleh

Perhaps the most famous case of this uniquely Israeli killing technique is the journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. The Palestinian-American reporter was shot in cold blood by an Israeli sniper and anyone attempting to reach her was shot at by Zionist gunmen who ensured that she was dead before being taken away.

An investigation into her death by Geneva-based human rights non-profit organisation Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor reached the following conclusion:

Euro-Med Monitor’s preliminary investigations indicate Abu Akleh was killed by an Israeli bullet that hit her below the ear, the only area unprotected by the press helmet she was wearing.

More importantly, the report said:

The Israeli army may have deliberately shot her in a lethal area, given the nature of the injury. The soldiers continued to shoot at anyone who tried to approach her, which hindered the delivery of crucial first aid for several minutes. [Emphasis added]

While the world has witnessed live-streamed Israeli brutality and the many forms of brutal killings that it subjects Palestinians to, including (but not limited to) beheadings, burnings, running bulldozers over injured bodies, burying alive, bombings, and cold-blooded executions, among a whole host of other forms of inhuman savagery, leaving people bleeding to death is a unique Israeli evil with few parallels in other conflict zones

Given a list of ways to die, enduring a slow and excruciating death while hearing the voices of people willing to help after experiencing a painful blow will probably be the least preferred option for any rational individual. However, occupied, brutalised, and dehumanised Palestinians are routinely denied dignity in life as well as in death by their barbaric Israeli occupiers.

PS: Having followed the issue of Palestinian occupation since my adolescence, I expected this issue to have piqued the interest of other researchers. I thought there would be extensive literature on the subject, but it was a surprising revelation that this unique Israeli evil unfortunately doesn’t receive the coverage it deserves, apart from news reports.

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