by Maureen Jack

On 12 February 2010, Israeli soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian man in his forties, the father of a large family, in Al-Khaliil (Hebron).

We have heard different versions of what happened.  The Israeli military reported that the man attempted to stab one or more soldiers with a knife and that the soldiers then shot him.  We heard from other witnesses that Palestinian kids were throwing stones and the soldiers started shooting; the man was not involved in the conflict but was shot while he was trying to escape from danger.  We were not there and so we do not know. 

There was no large funeral of the kind often held when a Palestinian dies this way.  A Palestinian friend told us that Israeli authorities had insisted on a quiet burial.

Earlier that week a Palestinian man had stabbed an Israeli soldier to death in the Nablus area.  Did that influence the soldiers who pulled their triggers in Hebron on 12 February?  I don't know.  What I do know is that the soldiers here in Hebron go out in groups of six and that each soldier wears heavy body protection and a helmet.  If the man did indeed have a knife, might it have been possible for the six soldiers to disarm him without killing him? 

Three of us from CPT were at the spot an hour or so after killing happened.  I heard the man’s mother wail, 'Ibni, ibni' ('My son, my son.')  I thought about her the next day and about the mother of the Israeli soldier killed near Nablus.  I know that I shall think of them too on Good Friday, as I think of another mother grieving for her son.