According to a Palestinian man shown in an amateur film lying face down, bloodied and unmoving, while an Israeli policeman kneels on his neck, Israeli troops assaulted and arrested him without provocation as he walked to worship at Jerusalem’s main Muslim shrine on Sunday.
Yousef Adi, 36, claimed he sustained a fractured nose and four stitches on his forehead due to last Thursday’s attack near the Al Aqsa mosque. The incident is the latest in a string of brutal Israeli police actions against Palestinians. According to Israeli police, the video altered the facts, and they used “appropriate force.”
Adi, a West Bank Palestinian and Palestine TV technician, said he had all the appropriate Israeli licenses to enter Jerusalem. He said that cops arbitrarily seized him within the Old City, pulled him against a wall, and proceeded to beat him.
“I did nothing except shout at them to leave me alone and stay away from me,” he said. “But then more policemen came and began hitting me everywhere on my body.”
A video circulated on social media appeared to show an officer from the Israeli border police pinning Adi’s head to the ground with his knee. Adi is bleeding from his nose and hanging limply as police officers cuff him and move his unconscious body. A pool of blood is visible on the ground.
A viral video on social media appeared to show an Israeli Border Police officer pushing Adi’s head to the ground with his knee. As police officers arrest him and carry his unconscious body, Adi is seen bleeding from his nose and hanging limply. A puddle of blood may be seen on the ground.
According to Adi, the beatings persisted, and he was finally hospitalized.
According to border officers, the video does not tell the whole story. It also published a different video of security camera footage from the events leading up to Adi’s arrest.
“Because of his violent behaviour, the troops were forced to use reasonable force to subdue the suspect who ran wild and remove the threat his violent behaviour posed,” the police said.
Adi claims he was fined 500 shekels (approximately $150) and barred from visiting Jerusalem for a month the next day.
“I’m still suffering from the pain,” he said. “My children, after seeing the video, wake up at night crying … I need surgery on my nose. Who will pay for it?”
The border police are a paramilitary group frequently deployed to keep order in difficult places like the Old City or suppress disturbances, and Palestinians have attacked its personnel. Simultaneously, Palestinian and human rights organizations accuse the force of often deploying excessive force and claiming that officers are rarely penalized for violent conduct.
An AP photographer was battered by a border policeman in an unjustified incident last December. An autistic Palestinian man was slain by a border policeman in the Old City two years ago. According to Israeli officials, the shot was a terrible error, and a cop has been charged with reckless murder in the case.
Earlier Sunday, Palestinian health officials announced the death of a Palestinian man injured in a battle with Israeli soldiers in the occupied West Bank last week.
Hamad Mustafa Abu Zelda, 24, was killed in Jenin following a confrontation with Israeli soldiers. The troops were dismantling the residence of a Palestinian shooter who killed three Israelis earlier this year in a Tel Aviv incident.
For months, Israel has been executing near-daily arrest raids in the West Bank, triggered by a wave of fatal assaults on Israelis earlier this year that killed 19.
In the 1967 Mideast conflict, Israel took the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, and the Palestinians desired those lands for a future state.
