Left-wing Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem released on Wednesday a new video footage revealing that Israeli soldiers beat and abused Yassin al-Saradih as he lay wounded and did not offer him the necessary medical aid.
On the night of 22 February 2018 at approximately 1:00 A.M. about twenty Israeli soldiers entered the city center of Jericho in the West Bank B’Tselem said.
Some fifteen minutes later several soldiers entered a home and searched it while others waited at the entrance to the alley where the house was located. The soldiers’ presence led to clashes in which Palestinians threw stones at the soldiers.
At some point Yassin al-Saradih (35) ran with an iron bar attached to a car wheel rim towards the soldiers who were standing at the entrance to the alley in an attempt to attack them.
In video footage captured by security cameras of nearby stores al-Saradih is seen running towards the soldiers with the bar. A soldier then shoots him in the lower body at point blank range.
After the shooting three other soldiers emerge from the alley and all four forcefully kick a-Saradih who is lying on the ground. The soldiers are seen beating him with their rifles and dragging him into the alley.
There they continue to drag him along face down and then lean over him shine flashlights on him kick him lightly and move him with their feet.
After about ten minutes during which time they offer the wounded man no medical assistance one of the soldiers fires a tear-gas cannister at the entrance to the alley. The soldiers are then seen dragging al-Saradih into the alley out of the cameras’ range apparently to avoid the tear gas that drifted their way.
About fifteen minutes later the soldiers are seen again outside the alley this time carrying al-Saradih by his arms and legs. They hoist him onto a military jeep that drives up and he is driven away.
According to the autopsy results published that day by the media al-Saradih was shot with live ammunition in the abdomen and may have died of blood loss. Nevertheless the Israeli authorities continued to claim that the paramedics who treated him saw no sign of bullet entry.
