War crime: video shows sniper killing of wounded Gaza civilian

Ali Abunimah Rights and Accountability 21 July 2014

Update, 22 July: Victim of war crime identified

The young man seen shot dead by a sniper in the video above has been identified as 20-year-old Salem Shamaly from the eastern Gaza City neighborhood of Shujaiya, where Israel committed a massacre early on Sunday morning. He survived the massacre but was then murdered in cold blood.

He had been missing for two days. Salem was identified when his parents and sisters endured the horrible experience of seeing the video above and recognizing him.

Gaza blogger Jehan Alfarra, who is currently in the UK, has written the story of how Salem was identified.

“While tweeting about a friend who lost his entire family yesterday, I saw repeated and persistent tweets sent by a dear friend, Mohammed Alqattawi, to Joe Catron, asking him to respond as a matter of urgency,” Alfarra writes.

Catron, an international volunteer and journalist, was an eyewitness to the killing. Concerned, Alfarra responded to Alqattawi’s messages.

“We’ve been looking for my cousin from Shujaiya for two days now,” Alqattawi told Alfarra. “We just watched a video that Joe tweeted of an injured Palestinian shot by an Israeli sniper while searching for his family. It is my cousin.”

“I clicked on the link to watch the video, and his mom and sister swiftly recognized him by his voice,” Alqattawi added, “and his dad came running and watched his son get shot and say the shehada” – the recitation of faith.

“Submerged in grief, Mohammed’s uncle got up to pray and read some Quran, hoping God will grant him some sort of sublime patience he needs in order to calm his wailing daughters,” Alfarra writes. Salem was the only son to his father and the only brother to his seven sisters.

“To the international community in general and the western world in particular, which seems to be overlooking Israeli war crimes,” Alfarra says, “Salem is but another number added to an already overflowing toll of Palestinian deaths. To his friends and family, Salem will always be the precious gem he has always been.”

The New York Times’ Robert Mackey provided additional details in a story on Shemaly:

Mr. Shamaly’s cousin, Mohammed Alqattawi, said in a telephone interview from Gaza on Tuesday that his family had tried to get rescue workers from the International Committee of the Red Cross at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City to retrieve the body, only to be told that the situation in Shejaiya remained too dangerous. At least 60 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed there during a fierce battle between the Israel Defense Forces and Hamas militants.

Alqattawi also told Mackey that his cousin Salem “worked as a grocer with his father in Gaza City’s old market and had ‘absolutely nothing’ to do with any militant brigade or the Hamas-led government of the territory.”

Original post

A video has emerged of the targeting and killing by a sniper of a Palestinian civilian in Gaza City’s Shujaiya neighborhood where Israeli shelling killed dozens of civilians and caused massive destruction early on Sunday morning.

The video, documenting a war crime, was uploaded to YouTube by the International Solidarity Movement, which described the incident in a 20 July press release:

The Israeli military just shot a Gazan man trying to reach his family, during an announced ceasefire. He was with a group of municipality workers and international human rights defenders who were attempting to retrieve injured people in the Shujaiya neighborhood.

“We all just watched a man murdered in front of us. He was trying to reach his family in Shujaiya, he had not heard from them and was worried about them. They shot him, and then continued to fire as he was on the ground. We had no choice but to retreat. We couldn’t reach him due to the artillery fire and then he stopped moving,” stated Joe Catron, US International Solidarity Movement (ISM) activist in Gaza. “Shujaiya is a smoking wasteland. We just passed two bombed out ambulances.”

The Israel military has also shelled Red Crescent ambulances as they attempted to retrieve injured people in the Shujaiya neighborhood, east of Gaza City. A ceasefire was announced, during which injured and dead people, could be evacuated from the area, in which at least 60 people have been killed today.

“They said we would be able to evacuate the injured from the disaster zone, but they have been shelling ambulances,” stated Dr Khalil Abu Foul of the Palestinian Red Crescent, speaking from Shujaiya.

Now, the international volunteers, including some from the US, the UK, and Sweden, are in a rescue centre on the outskirts of Shujaiya.

Catron is also a frequent contributor to The Electronic Intifada.

The photo below taken by Joe Catron shows the group of human rights defenders wearing yellow vests, and a young man in jeans and a green t-shirt. The same young man appears in the video above, shot.

Salem Shamaly, in green shirt, leading a group of volunteers in Shujaiya shortly before he was shot repeatedly by Israeli snipers on 20 July 2014.

Joe Catron

Israeli war crimes have been documented on video with depressing frequency, including the 15 May sniper killings of two Palestinian teens in the occupied West Bank town of Beitunia.

However, even such evidence rarely results in justice or accountability, due to the systematic impunity Israel affords perpetrators of crimes against Palestinians.

Relentless slaughter continues

Israel’s relentless slaughter continued on Monday for the fourteenth consecutive day, killing multiple members of three extended families as the death toll rose to over 500, Ma’an News Agency reported.

In Khan Younis, at least 26 members of the Abu Jami family were killed by Israeli shelling in the largest single atrocity so far. Democracy Now! reporter Sharif Kouddous in Gaza captured these photos of the massacre’s aftermath.

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Comments

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mary keating replied on

Thanks for sharing this and thanks for filming it. I am crying, but my heart is also opened very wide in awe and wonder and respect and admiration for this young boy whose faith in God and whose love for God went way way beyond the brutal outrage of his cold blooded murder. It proves beyond any shadow of doubt his innocence primarily, the lack of a political agenda on his part . I would like to see this presented to the United Nations Security Council as a matter of urgency. I can imagine how deeply this has affected all witnesses and all those who will see it. He is truly a shining light. With the utmost of respect for those of you who seek truth and with prayers for his family. May his soul/spirit be elevated to the most high level. Namaste.

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Riyadh replied on

May Allah Accept his martyrdom and Grant him the highest status in Paradise. His killers are no doubt the dogs of hell and deserve such an abode.

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Rezan replied on

The Western powers created this Frankenstein monster and they are not able nor do they want to stop it. They even say it is justified to 'defend itself'. This means they are equally complicit in these massacre of innocents. Hamas started the rocket shelling only after Israel started its assault on Gaza. We don't know who killed the three Israeli soldiers There is no evidence.It could be any individual with revenge in his heart or it could be a mentally deranged Israeli himself just to find an excuse to attack Gaza. Also the peace deal between Fatah and Hamas drew the line. Israel panicked and so it is doing what its doing. Let's not forget even if the Israeli soldiers were executed five young Palestinian teenagers were shot and killed by Israeli snipers. So it could also be a revenge attack.
The world must now wake up. Those who remain silent in the face of criminal oppression and injustice are complicit in the crime themselves. America must wake up and question its conscience and condemn Israel's actions . They must freeze all Israeli bank accounts. Stop all trade and impose complete sanctions on Israel. Europe must completely follow the same. Also they must warn Israel that if they continue to violate UN resolutions they must pay the price fully. All Arab countries must unite at least now and boycott Israel. The world must boycott Israel. Stop buying Israeli products and expel Israeli diplomats out of their countries. This will make Israel realize that it is being isolated. The reason why it behaves with such ruthless confidence is because it knows it has the support of the US and Europe in its demonic actions. It was the US and Britain who created this scourge called Israel . So only these two powers are responsible for whatever is happening and only it is these two powers who can actually stop this carnage and play a truly just role in world peace. Will they? Also what is more baffling is why is the American public so silent about this? Complicit? Maybe.

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Anonymous replied on

Completely agree with what you are saying - just want to clarify though that a lot of the American public have demonstrated and protested against it. They're not "so silent" about it. Like you said, it's the governments of these countries that are to blame for the atrocities and outright violations of human rights laws..

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kashif replied on

I watched this video in horror and saw a young vibrant man killed by these Sadistic people. You could clearly tell this man was innocent and trying to find his family and was seen helping carry another man on a stretcher just moments before. I was touched when he said the Shahada before he passed, my Allah forgive him and grant him Paradise. Asalamallakum.

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Jerry Desmond replied on

This is scandalous, this is a massacre, this is wrong. Israel is a Frankenstein State built on mythology and historical inaccuracy. Not many States can boast to be as brutal and ideologically wrong as Israel is today. History will record its actions for future generations and history will ask why the West allowed this to happen.

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Lynn replied on

When people look back on this, they will indict both Israel and its supporters for allowing this to happen.

Israel's and its supporters callous indifference to these crimes and the needless daily suffering of the people in Gaza is indefensible.

They don't hate us for our freedom. They hate us for denying them their freedom.

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Mars replied on

How many more will you kill , how many homes will you destroy.
Know that the people you are trying to ethnically cleanse are the true inheritors of the prophets .
They stand up againts injustice .
You will never break the will of the believers of truth .
They have been promised with paradise and you have been promised with eternal Hell.

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Michael Nolan replied on

As an American, I am deeply ashamed that my country supports these filthy cowards. Zionists are the enemy of Gaza and of the American people.

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seafoid replied on

Appalling evidence of Israeli impunity. 72000 views on youtube already.
It's not about what the goys say, it's what the zionists do.

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Teddi replied on

I do not agree with Israel and what is happening now. However, I don't agree with Hamas either. We need people who are strong to stand up to both sides and work out a true peace accord. There is going to be a generation lost on both sides and it is the world that truly suffers; because these young people could be the ones who discover new medicines, new technologies, new cures for horrible diseases and instead we are losing them to rockets and bullets.

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Mirmee replied on

Originally, Hamas was seen as a terrorist organisation, but we are forgetting it was elected by the people of Gaza, Hamas had given up their original roots and started to better Gaza for the people, which Israel did not like, Israel also did not want to recognise Hamas as a legit political party and therefore, will not give in to Hamas's proposals for ceasefire, they want independence and life for Gaza which rightly so, living in an occupied state for 50+years and now under siege of goods! education, health facilities! it's disgusting.

Israel don't like Hamas as Hamas will not tolerate Israels injustices whereas the original Govt (PA) we're eating out of Israels hands... Another reason why people of Gaza selected Hamas

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Anonymous replied on

Meanwhile, BBC lets Israel flush freely whatever they want to say.

This morning, BBC's "Today" spoke with IDF spokesman Col Lerner. Without *any* intervention from the journalist, he was allowed to keep diverting from answering, to repeat idle words like 'we warned before attacking' (still a terrorist action in itself). Not a single challenge by the BBC journalist (Sarah Montague, this time) while he was hesitating. IDF was allowed to say "we do not target civilians" (2:21:30), "a civilian overspill of the battle" (what?), "we have 13 soldiers killed not because they were fighting civilians, but because these terrorist were utilising ..." BBC: "but we know", "we know". IDF: "It is possible that they [Hamas] also killed [their own] people living in Shujaiya because they were holding them hostage" (2:21:55). All this without *any* pushback or challenge from the interviewer/journalist.

Just a check: these weeks, I have not heard one single BBC journalist ask Israel: what is your proof? Not one BBC journalist asked. Sic transit gloria BBC.

BBC Radio 4: Today, 21/7/2014. from 2:17:30, Col Peter Lerner (actually Lt Col)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programme...

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Farad replied on

May Allah grant the martyrs highest state in Paradise and I pray to Allah to take the perpetrators to task for their actions in this world and the hereafter, I shudder to think how the aggressors souls will be removed from their bodies at their time of death.

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Abir replied on

God's will is above all evil
May Allah have mercy over his aching soul
God gave him relief to follow his family

Hope all these mesiries stop soon

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Dr UK replied on

If anyone had any doubts if God was fair to create Hell and condemn some people there forever.... this is their answer.
And Allah does not oppress anyone, but the criminals oppress themselves (by comitting crimes that will condemn them to hell forever).... a recurring theme in the Quran.

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Karma Tshering Bhutia replied on

תודה על השיתוף הזה, ותודה על שצילם אותו. אני בוכה, אבל הלב שלי נפתח גם רחב מאוד ביראה ובפליאה וכבוד והערצה לילד הצעיר הזה שאמונתם באלוהים ובאהבתו לאלוהים הלך בדרך הרבה מעבר לזעם האכזרי של הרצח בדם הקר שלו. זה הוכיח מעבר לכל צל של ספק בחפותו בעיקר, חוסר סדר יום פוליטי בחלקו. אני רוצה לראות את זה בפני מועצת הביטחון של האו"ם כעניין של דחיפות. אני יכול לדמיין כמה עמוק זה השפיע על כל העדים וכל מי שיראה את זה. הוא באמת אור זורח. עם מלוא כבוד לאלו מכם שמחפשים את האמת ועם תפילות למשפחתו. ייתכן שהנשמה / רוחו להיות מורמת לגבוהה ביותר ברמה.

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truth replied on

This is Against all human rights but its like the western world just doesnt care, call it what you want bt I think its because theyre Muslims and Muslims lives arent worth nothing to them. just a means to an end. Complicity is evil, and this is far pass complicity.

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Mohammed replied on

My fried the Palestinians have been trying to make peace for the past 24 years or so; while Israel continues to expand settlements, occupation, and killing of innocent children!!!!!
I believe that the Israel’s leaders are very stupid, why? Because it’s better to reach a middle ground with Hamas and the Palestinians now rather one day they’ll have on their hand extremist on both sides! Sheers Iraq and …..and...….???
Israelis have to wake up!! Read the history of the world!! How long the oppression of the Palestinians will continue??????

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maggie replied on

Murder. This is deliberate and callous murder of an innocent civilian who was clearly targeted by a civilian. That is no "collateral damage". That is not untargeted death. That is cruel and deliberate murder. This video should be enough to take Israel to the world court and convict them.

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Darren replied on

I am totally stunned, very sad and so emotional and just feel so sad for the poor boys family. Killed, no murdered by the Isralis. I'm an Englishmen who will shout as loud as I can in my own country to support the people of Gaza and all the people of Palestine.

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Mohammed replied on

Netanyahu is committing genocide against the Palestinians people under the nose of the west governments. I don’t see any difference between him and Hitler except for the approval of most of the west governments and the USA government! And please don’t forget the Egyptian poppet!!!

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Shelly Ann replied on

I am ashamed that my country is freely supporting this kind of premeditated murder of young people. If I could stop my tax dollars from being used to support this type of heinous crimes, I would. The best I can do is to write my congressman and hopes he listens to us.

Shelly Ann LPN (ret)

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Shelly Ann replied on

What is happening in Gaza today resembles what happened in the Warsaw Ghettos of the 40's. It seems to me that the Israeli government has learned from the worst human rights violating regime that has ever existed on this planet, that of the WW II Nazis, they treat the Palestinian people as the SS treated the Zionist/European Jews of that time. Most of the Jewish people now are of Zionist ancestry. It had always amazed me how the Palestinian Jews got along with the Palestinian Muslems before the Zionist Jews arrived. Looking back into the pre-Israel history of Palestine you do not find references to this type of animosity or the abundance of the so called "terrorist" organizations that we see today. During my long life time I have gone from being supportive of Israel to wishing that they were never given the lands stolen from Palestine. Or that the British before leaving the area left what was left of Palestine to be gobbled up by its neighbors.

It has come to the time that all the right minded citizens around the world to demand their governments to withhold funding, in money and material, of Israel. Our national leaders around the world need to demand that Israel abide by the Geneva Accords on Land Warfare and those articles that govern an occupying country in how they treat the occupied people. I do not have a link to the accords but they should not be hard to find on the internet by looking up the Geneva Conventions. That was how I found a copy of them. We must demand that the UN put peacekeeping troops on the ground between Gaza and Israel on both sides of the border and that the World Court investigate and bring to trial on war crime charges the leaders of Israel and the military leaders who are pushing this genocidal war. The west needs to withdraw support of Israel, now. The voices of the people do matter, don't let the rightwing war hawks intimidate you, speak out against this.

//s// A Proud Honorable American Veteran, 1970-1994, Combat 1991.

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Zunaid replied on

Have u ever travelled/visited Gaza or the West Bank? The Palestinians are treated like third class citizens! They are required to carry identity documents wherever they go. There freedom and rights of movement and expression are suppressed in every way possible. They are treated worst than animals and are searched and assaulted at every check point. I am from South Africa, and the treatment of the Palestinians by the Israeli's, is worse than the way the Apartheid government treated the 'non-whites' in SA. If u were forced to live in a cage, without food and water; without freedom; without hope for days on end; what would you do? U don't have to be Muslim, Christian, Jewish or Hindu to realize that something is seriously wrong here! U just have to be human. These were the late President Nelson Mandela's last words on the Palestinian conflict :
"Apartheid is a crime against humanity. Israel has deprived millions of Palestinians of their liberty and property. It has perpetuated a system of gross racial descrimination and inequality. It has systemetically incarcerated and tortured thousands of Palestinians, contrary to the rules of international law. It has, in particular, waged a war against a civilian population, in particular children. We know too well that our freedom is incomplete, without the freedom of the Palestinians." Poignant words from one of the most wise and respected leaders in human history!

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Anonymous replied on

As I argue in http://thewordenreportinternat..., the extreme imbalance in the respective death tolls suggest the sort of a fight that, were it in boxing, the referee would have called. Why then does the international community have such tolerance for unfairness? I argue that national sovereignty is one reason, but also how our species handles having power.

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munny replied on

Why all this killings? I see little kids been killed. I was moved to tears. Ya Allah have mercy on those killed. Ya Allah pls put an end to this war.

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Abdul Latuf Kazi replied on

God almighty is watching ! They are forgetting this fact that Almighty has his own way of justice very soon they will see the punishment being delivered !!!!!

Ali Abunimah

Co-founder of The Electronic Intifada and author of The Battle for Justice in Palestine, now out from Haymarket Books.

Also wrote One Country: A Bold-Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse. Opinions are mine alone.