JERUSALEM (AP) – Israeli police shot and killed an unarmed autistic Palestinian on Saturday in the Old City of Jerusalem on suspicion of the man carrying a weapon.
The incident was widely condemned and revived complaints of excessive use of force by the Israeli police. On social networks, some compared the fact to cases of police violence that occur in the United States.
Relatives identified the man as Iyad Halak, 32, and indicated that he suffered from autism and that on the day of his death he was heading to the school for students with special needs where he studied daily.
“They killed him in cold blood,” Halak’s mother told Israeli Channel 12 television.
In a statement, Israeli police argued that their agents detected the man “with a suspicious object that looked like a pistol.” When he did not follow orders to stop, officers fired, according to the statement. Police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld later indicated that no weapons were found.
Channel 12 reported that Israeli border paramilitary police officers shot Halak’s legs and chased him into a dead end. According to the television, a senior agent ordered them to stop the fire when they entered the alley, but a second agent did not listen and fired six or seven bullets with an M-16 rifle, killing Halak. The report indicates that both officers were detained and interrogated for several hours.
A video taken by The Associated Press at the scene shows three bullet holes in a white wall at the end of the alley.
Halak’s father, Kheiri, said police searched the family’s home after the shooting.
“They found nothing,” she said, adding that the police insulted her daughter when she was upset with them.
Lone Palestinian assailants with no apparent links to armed groups have carried out a series of stabbing attacks, shootings and killings in recent years.
Palestinian and Israeli human rights groups have long accused Israeli security forces of excessive use of force in some cases, either by killing individuals who have been arrested or by using deadly force even when their lives are not in danger.
“We must resist the expected cover-up and ensure that the police go to jail,” Ayman Odeh, leader of the main Arab party in Parliament, tweeted. “Justice will only be done when the Halak family, their friends and the rest of the Palestinian people know freedom and independence.”
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On social media, some pro-Palestinian activists compared the shooting to the death of George Floyd, a handcuffed black man living in Minnesota who pleaded with him to breathe while a white police officer pressed his knee to his neck. His death has sparked violent protests in various parts of the United States.
Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid, whose daughter is autistic, called Halak’s death “heartbreaking.”
“The death of a young person with special needs is heartbreaking and all of Israel bows its head. This is not our way, ”he tweeted.
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