• UN special rapporteur says troops used Abbadi to shield themselves from gunfire
• Army admits conduct of forces did not conform to values of IDF

JENIN: Israeli troops tied a wounded Palestinian to a military vehicle during a raid in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin, the army said on Sunday, admitting that soldiers had violated operational procedures.

Footage of the incident, which occurred on Saturday, has gone viral and shows a man strapped horizontally to the bonnet of a military jeep as it passes through a narrow alley.

Medics identified the Palestinian as Mujahid Raed Abbadi, 24, who lives in the Jenin refugee camp. The military said a Palestinian man was wounded during a “counterterrorism operation” to arrest wanted suspects in the area of Wadi Burqin, between the town of Burqin and Jenin.

During an exchange of fire between troops and militants in Burqin’s Jabriyat neighbourhood, a Palestinian was wounded and apprehended, the military said in a statement.

The statement referred to him as a “suspect”, but did not specify any accusations against Abbadi, who medics said was being treated at Jenin’s Ibn Sina hospital, and not in Israeli custody.

The military said: “In violation of orders and standard operating procedures, the suspect was taken by the forces while tied on top of a vehicle.” He was later transferred to the Palestinian Red Crescent for treatment, it said.

“The conduct of the forces in the video of the incident does not conform to the values of the IDF (military),” the statement said. “The incident will be investigated and dealt with accordingly.”

UN special rapporteur

Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the rights situation in the Palestinian territories, suggested the troops were using Abbadi to shield themselves from gunfire.

“#HumanShielding in action”, Albanese wrote on social media platform X, sharing footage of the incident. At the hospital, Abbadi said he was hit and wounded as he stepped out of his uncle’s house in Jabriyat.

“I tried to withdraw and get inside the house, but they started shooting”, hitting him in the hand, Abbadi said in his hospital bed.

‘Stomped my head’

He said he fell to the ground in an area behind the military jeep and was hit once more, with a bullet penetrating his leg. According to Abbadi, rescuers or medics were unable to reach him for more than two hours as he lay on the ground.

“I started crawling” trying to escape as fighting continued around him, he said, before the Israeli troops noticed him.

“When they (the soldiers) arrived they stomped on my head and hit my face, my injured leg and hand,” Abbadi recalled. “They were laughing and playing while they hit me.” The soldiers lifted him and threw him on the ground before tying him to the bonnet of the jeep, he said.

Bahaa Abu Hammad, the doctor treating Abbadi at Ibn Sina hospital, said that “he has burns on his back from neck to lower back” from being tied to the military jeep in the scorching summer heat.

Jenin has long been a stronghold for Palestinian militant groups, and the Israeli army routinely carries out raids in the city and an adjacent refugee camp.

Violence in the West Bank, which had already surged before the Israeli aggression in Gaza, has only escalated since. At least 553 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli troops or settlers since the Gaza war broke out, according to Palestinian officials. Attacks by Palestinians have killed at least 14 Israelis in the West Bank over the same period, according to a tally of Israeli official figures.

Published in Dawn, June 24th, 2024