Since 2021, Israeli soldiers have met weekly protests in the West Bank village with deadly force.
Jonah Valdez, The Intercept, September 17 2024
ON A HOT August afternoon in 2021 as protesters confronted Israeli soldiers near the West Bank village of Beita, Imad Ali Dweikat stood far away from the commotion, next to several parked ambulances, to take a water break.
As he chatted with friends and lifted his water bottle to drink, Dweikat suddenly fell face-first to the ground. With temperatures rising into the 90s, his friends thought he had collapsed from the heat. But when they turned him over, blood started streaming from his chest where gunfire from Israeli forces had struck him. Dweikat, 38, a construction worker from Beita and father of five, died at a nearby hospital less than an hour later.
Over the last week, Aseel AlBajeh, a Palestinian advocate and researcher who helped document Dweikat’s killing, had been thinking about his story as details began to emerge about the killing of another protester in Beita: American activist Aysenur Eygi, who was shot by Israeli forcesearlier this month. Though three years separated the killings, Eygi’s story seemed all too familiar.
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Like Dweikat, Eygi had been standing with other activists a long distance from Israeli soldiers, far from any protesters confronting the military, when gunfire rang out and she suddenly dropped to the floor, according to eyewitnesses in a growing number of reports. Eygi died of a gunshot wound to the head. She was buried over the weekend in Turkey where she was born, drawing hundreds of mourners.
It became clear to AlBajeh, through her research for human rights group Al-Haq, that Israeli authorities’ use of live ammunition on civilians was a part of a larger pattern of targeting civilians to suppress protest movements.
“When I heard the news on [Eygi’s] killing, I was of course heartbroken, but I was not surprised,” said AlBajeh. “Because we Palestinians know that Israeli occupying forces and authorities do not care if you’re a Palestinian, a protester, if you’re a journalist, a paramedic, if you’re a child, if you’re an international standing in solidarity with Palestinians — their live ammunition is just targeting anything and anyone.”
For the report published by Al-Haq in March, AlBajeh helped record the cases of 10 Palestinians who were killed by Israeli gunfire in 2021 and 2022 in the same place: the village of Beita, just south of Nablus, whose residents have gathered for weekly protests against a nearby illegal Israeli settlement, Evyatar, which was built on Palestinian land on Mount Sabih in 2021. Residents of Beita feared the same fate of other nearby villages that have seen their lands annexed away by Israel and are subject to constant settler violence. Protesters often march toward the settlement, chanting, posting Palestinian flags along the way. Most gather for prayer nearby. Some hurl rocks toward Israeli soldiers or Border Police, who often respond with deadly force.
Since AlBajeh’s research ended, the Israeli military has killed six others at the same protest site near Beita, including Eygi, according to footage of the shootings, Palestinian media reports, and the International Solidarity Movement, the group Eygi had joined. Israeli soldiers have also killed two more civilians during military operations inside the village. Among the 18 dead are six teenage boys. None posed a threat to Israeli soldiers or Border Police officers, according to eyewitness statements highlighted in the Al-Haq report and a separate report published in 2022 by Israeli human rights group B’Tselem.
In several cases, people were shot while walking away from military forces, with their backs to the soldiers. More than 6,000 others have been injured by rubber-coated bullets, tear gas, and live ammunition during the protests, the Al-Haq report said. The report concluded that the Israel Defense Forces regularly employs shoot-to-kill and shoot-to-maim policies against Palestinian civilians to quell demonstrations. Such conduct, the report said, is in violation of international humanitarian law within the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights from 1966, which includes protections on the right of peaceful assembly. Both Israel and the United States are signatories to the international treaty.
“The reason we decided to do an entire report on Beita was because we felt that this village is a case study, an exemplification of a broader trend of a systemic use of force against Palestinian protesters whenever they decide to resist Israel’s illegal occupation,” AlBajeh said.
“This village is a case study, an exemplification of a broader trend of a systemic use of force against Palestinian protesters.”
Israel is currently conducting an internal investigation into Eygi’s killing. Its preliminary findings said Eygi was “indirectly and unintentionally” struck by IDF fire “which was not aimed at her,” but at “the key instigator of the riot” and said the shooting took place “during a violent riot in which dozens of Palestinian suspects burned tires and hurled rocks toward security forces at the Beita Junction.”
A Washington Post investigation last week — which relied on eyewitness testimony, footage, and photos — disproved Israel’s narrative and found that Eygi was shot during moments of calm, after the height of the demonstration. She stood away from protesters, who had already moved far down the road, away from the Israeli military 20 minutes prior to her shooting. Neither the protesters nor Eygi posed an immediate threat to the military when a soldier fired and killed her.
Immediately after Eygi’s death, concerns arose over Israel’s ability to hold its own soldiers accountable for the killing. There have been mounting calls for a U.S.-led independent investigation, from Eygi’s family to members of Congress, including Democratic lawmakers Sen. Patty Murray and Rep. Pramila Jayapal from Eygi’s home state of Washington. However, President Joe Biden’s administration has refused calls to open a separate investigation until Israel concludes its own.
Last week, hours after Biden told reporters the shooting was an accident, the result of a bullet ricocheting off the ground, the White House released a statement, condemning the killing as “totally unacceptable.” The White House also said it is monitoring Israel’s investigation and went on to call the shooting “a tragic error resulting from an unnecessary escalation.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken offered perhaps the Biden’s administration’s most full-throated condemnation of the killing, calling it “unprovoked and unjustified,” while suggesting that the Israel’s military need “to make some fundamental changes in the way they operate in the West Bank, including changes to their rules of engagement.”
An Israeli military spokesperson declined to disclose its rules of engagement to The Intercept but claimed the rules adhere to international law. However, the military admitted to using live fire during protests if they feel the need to protect its soldiers or civilians.
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THE ISRAEL MILITARY spokesperson also said that investigations have been carried out for the majority of the 17 other shooting deaths near Beita since 2021 but declined to comment on their outcomes.
In a statement, the Israeli military said that whenever soldiers kill someone in the West Bank, the military launches a criminal investigation, “unless the incident unfolded in active combat and or real-time exchange of fire, or if there is no suspicion of a crime having been committed by an IDF soldiers.” After evidence is reviewed, indictments are filed by military prosecutors in certain cases, the spokesperson said. However, the spokesperson complained of “a lack of cooperation on the part of the complainants” and claimed many who file claims refuse to testify or hand over relevant documents and may even retract their complaint after the fact.
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Neither AlBajeh nor the International Solidarity Movement said they were aware of any Israeli criminal investigations launched into the killings of the 10 Palestinians she reviewed. AlBajeh also acknowledged that many Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank declined to participate in Israel’s investigations due to decades of trauma and mistrust in the judicial process.
She referenced a 2022 survey by Israeli human rights group Yesh Din, which found that only 1 percent of complaints that allege military misconduct, including the killings of more than 400 Palestinians, led to prosecution. During a five-year period, the survey found that only 11 soldiers were charged by military prosecutors over the killing of Palestinians. The even smaller number of those who were convicted were sentenced only to short-term military community service. The lack of accountability, the report said, has allowed the Israeli military to commit violence against Palestinians with impunity.
During her field research, AlBajeh spoke with the family of Mohammad Ali Khabisa, 28, a house painter with an 8-month-old child, who was shot in the head by an Israeli soldier while he was leaning against an olive tree, talking with friends and resting amid an ongoing protest. While visiting Khabisa’s parents at their home in Beita, she learned that their two other sons were also affected by the Israeli military. She first noticed their 26-year-old son’s leg was in a cast. He had injured his ACL while also protesting at Mount Sabih in 2021 as he ran from tear gas canisters fired by the Israeli military. In 2022, Israeli soldiers raided their village and pulled their third son, who was 27 at the time, from their home, holding him in administrative detention, in which individuals are indefinitely imprisoned without being charged. The family said they were unable to visit their son and could only catch a glimpse of him through monitors during court hearings.
“And you could see the level of psychological impact on the entire family,” AlBajeh said. Khabisa’s father told her that he recently underwent heart surgery, which he attributed to the stress and grief from losing his son.
The other killings AlBajeh helped record included several protesters who were killed while retreating from soldiers, including Ahmad Zahi Bani Shamsa, 15, and Zakaria Maher Falah ‘Hamayel,’ 28; Mohammad Saed Hamayel, 16, killed while sheltering beneath an olive tree, catching his breath from a barrage of tear gas; Issa Barham, 40, struck after arriving with his car, volunteering to drive wounded protesters to a hospital; 32-year-old Jamil Jamal Abu Ayash, who held a slingshot when he was shot and killed by a masked soldier firing at protesters hiding behind a wall; Fawaz Ahmad Hamayel, 47, fatally shot in the stomach while hurling stones at soldiers; Tariq Omar Snobar, 27, hit three times — twice by rubber-coated bullets in the leg and head, and once in the stomach by live fire as he stood along the fence of a nearby home; and Ahmad Zahi Bani Shamsa, 15, shot in the head after lighting tires on fire with a group of other teenage boys, a technique designed to confuse IDF soldiers.
AMONG THE MORE than 6,000 injured protesters surveyed by the Al-Haq report, 178 were injured by live bullets and nearly 1,000 by rubber-coated metal bullets. Most of those injuries were to the lower limbs of protesters, which the report argues is evidence of the Israeli military’s shoot-to-maim policy.
At protests near Beita, AlBajeh remembered seeing men still healing from gunshot wounds to the knees, continuing to protest with crutches or canes in hand.
Several other protesters had lost their eyes to wounds from rubber-coated bullets. She also recalled an emotional interview with an 18-year-old boy who had been shot in the face with a “dum-dum” bullet. Such ammunition, which expands upon impact to cause more gruesome wounds, is outlawed on the battlefield by international law. The boy underwent four surgeries, making speech difficult, which has hurt his job prospects. Damage to his mouth forced him to eat through a straw.
“So it’s not only about killing Palestinians, but it’s also about ruining Palestinian lives, trying to prevent them from attending a protest again and to reduce the struggle,” AlBajeh said.
The report also cited Israel’s use of shoot-to-maim and shoot-to-kill policies during the Great March of Return. During this monthslong series of demonstrations that ran from 2018 to 2019, thousands of Palestinians marched along Gaza’s border with Israel, protesting against the ongoing land, air, and sea blockade of the territory and arguing that they should be allowed to return to land settled by Israelis. During the demonstrations, which lasted 18 months, 214 Palestinians, including 46 children, were killed, and over 36,100, including about 8,800 children were injured, according to the United Nations. One in 5 of the injured were hit by Israeli gunfire, mostly from snipers positioned along the border. More than 170 people were left with permanent disabilities from their injuries, the World Health Organization said.
At the height of protests in Beita in 2021, hundreds of villagers would stream into the area for weekly marches each Friday. Some would stay throughout the week, at times camping overnight, aiming laser pointers at the illegal Evyatar outpost to disrupt Israeli settlers, prompting the settlers to leave in July 2021. However, the settlement structures remained, and the military continued to guard the area.
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The weekly protests continued until October 7, when military operations began to escalate throughout the West Bank, making the demonstrations too risky, according to Jonathan Pollak, a longtime Israeli activist who has joined Palestinians protesting near Beita for the last three years. However, in July, when the Israeli government announced it would legalize the Evyatar outpost, the demonstrations resumed.
A co-founder of Anarchists Against the Wall, a movement against the Israeli West Bank Wall that separates parts of the West Bank from Israel and is illegal under international law, Pollak said that it was common practice for the Israeli military and Border Police to shoot live rounds at unarmed protesters. In protests since October 7, he noticed the Israeli soldiers started to use live ammunition more frequently.
He was among the first to assist Eygi after Israeli gunfire struck her head, running over to where she lay beneath an olive tree, holding her head, attempting to stop the bleeding until paramedics took her to a hospital. He said that before Eygi’s death, he had assisted many other protesters who were struck by military gunfire at Beita and other places throughout the West Bank.
“I’ve carried the dead numerous times,” he said. “I’ve had to try and stop the bleeding of other demonstrators, of children.”
Pollack acknowledged that some protesters have thrown stones at soldiers or burned tires but criticized attempts by the Israeli military and its supporters to frame the protests as an equal clash between two warring sides.
“We’re not talking about a military confrontation where two sides are engaging in military tactics,” he said. “We’re talking about demonstrators, who are met with Israel’s military might. People speak of non-violence and the need for non-violence but that is only targeted at Palestinians who use, if at all, a fraction of the violence Israel is employing.”
Pollack criticized most media reports that attempted to paint Eygi’s death as an isolated incident, rather than a part of a larger phenomenon. He pointed to the death of the 17 Palestinians from Beita and Amado Sison, another American volunteer, who was struck by live ammunition in the back of the leg in August in Beita. On the same day as Eygi’s death, Israeli soldiers killed a 13-year-old girl in another village several kilometers to the south. Identified as Bana Amjad Bakr, she was shot by Israeli forces while she was inside her room with her sisters, as soldiers confronted Palestinian villagers outside who were protesting against Israeli settlers setting fire to their fields.
Eygi’s death comes as Israeli forces have escalated its aggression in the West Bank, conducting large military operations in the northern part of the occupied territory. The majority of attacks have taken place in Jenin, where the Israeli military ended a 10-day occupation of the city, raiding homes, destroying roads and other civilian infrastructure, besieging hospitals, and killing dozens, including several civilians. Among the dead was a 16-year-old Palestinian girl who was shot by an Israeli sniper as she looked out of her window, the girl’s father told reporters. An Intercept investigation earlier this year found that nearly half of the people killed by Israeli airstrikes in the West Bank in the past year have been children.
Before marching toward the illegal outpost, weekly protests outside Beita always begin with a midday prayer on a mount opposite from the Israeli settlement.
However, last Friday, Israeli soldiers and armored trucks formed a blockade to prevent the group of several dozen from carrying out a memorial prayer for Eygi. Posted at a garden where the prayers take place was a large banner bearing Eygi’s face and name, alongside Palestinian flags. One elderly man in the group stood directly in front of IDF soldiers, leading a chant: “America, head of the snake,” an allusion to the unconditional military aid the U.S. continues to send to Israel.
“It’s a continuation of the message that they sent by shooting Aysenur.”
The IDF eventually allowed the group’s elders to pray but turned away its younger men. The group of soldiers, which doubled in size since the previous week, said Pollak, ultimately prevented the crowd of several dozen from carrying out their weekly protest.
“It’s a continuation of the message that they sent by shooting Aysenur,” Pollak said. “That no matter how benign, no form of protest or resistance is going to be tolerated, whether it is Palestinians protesting, or international solidarity activists standing with them, anyone standing tall could be targeted even if it is only a condolences, memorial prayer for a fallen martyr. And the only message that can be sent back, no matter what happens, no matter what violence they employ, we will continue to stand with Palestinians for liberation, until liberation.”
He said he would rejoin protesters this Friday in hopes of resuming the weekly demonstrations.
Update: September 17, 2024, 1:53 p.m. ET
The article has been updated with a comment from the IDF on its rules of engagement received after publication.
CONTACT THE AUTHOR:
Jonah Valdez @jonahmv on X
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