New video of Umm al-Hiran shooting: 'Don't shoot'
More than two months after the incident in which police officer Erez Levi was run over and the civilian Yaqub Abu al-Qiyan was shot to death, a new video from that night comes to light in which a man’s voice can be heard shouting ‘don’t shoot’ followed by sounds of gunfire.
In the video, a man is heard screaming “don’t shoot” followed by another shout, calling out to “charge,” and then a burst of gunfire.
The al-Qiyan family released a segment from the video, which was captured by Miriam Abu al-Qiyan.
"You see the police vehicle that was hit by heavy fire from the police. You hear the policemen who say ‘don’t shoot, don’t shoot,'" said Miriam's husband, Raed Abu al-Qiyan.
Earlier this month, investigators from the Israel Police's Internal Affairs Unit arrived at Umm al-Hiran to reenact the events that took place about two months ago during clashes between police forces and the village's residents.
The rioting had broken out following the demolition of illegal structures in the Bedouin Negev community. At first, the police claimed the incident was a vehicle-ramming terror attack, only to be retracted later when questions arose.
The investigators brought a vehicle similar to the vehicle used by al-Qiyan in an attempt to understand the sequence of events as part of the ongoing investigation. The reenactment was carried out with the vehicle’s headlights on, even though the police’s initial version of the events was that the car’s lights had been off.
In addition, Internal Affairs is still awaiting the results of the ballistics tests that are supposed to shed additional light on the incident.
Raed Abu al-Qiyan, a relative of the driver who was killed in the incident, said: "The reenactment was late in coming, but it is better late than never. We pressured Internal Affairs to carry out the reenactment, both the residents and our lawyers. We hope that the truth will come out and that all those culpable will be punished. Minister Uri Ariel and Minister Gilad Erdan could have also prevented this. Two people paid with their lives for politicians' mistakes. We do not want Internal Affairs to single out one soldier or one officer. The responsibility lies with the police commissioner, the minister and the officers who had a hand in this."
(Translated and edited by N. Elias)
