Amira Hass : The Execution of Hadeel al-Hashlamoun
The parents of the soldiers who killed Hadeel
al-Hashlamoun while she was lying wounded are not worried: No military
force will break into their homes in the wee hours of the morning,
gather at gunpoint the wife and the scared little children into a small
room and measure each room in preparation for blowing up the house. They
probably continue to have their relaxed Friday night meals at home,
perhaps accompanied by Shabbat melodies. Normal life of the ordinary
families will continue as usual.
An Israel Defense Forces
investigation revealed that the soldiers who killed Hashlamoun on
September 22, while she was passing through a checkpoint at the entrance
to the old city in Hebron, could have done with only arresting her.
Human rights organizations and journalists, not to mention basic logic,
reached the same conclusion much earlier. At least two soldiers shot the
18-year-old from a distance of two to four meters. Three bullets hit
her legs. Another seven — her upper body. She fell to the ground after
the first shots, but our soldiers continued to spray her with bullets.
Israelis mark the killing of
Eitam and Naama Henkin as the beginning of the “wave of riots” of
October 2015. For the Palestinians, the killing of Hashlamoun was the
last straw, added to accumulated, permanent fear and lack of security in
the face of thousands of armed Israelis (soldiers and settlers) who are
stuck among them and disrupt their lives all the time. That Israelis
are ignoring the constant undermining of the Palestinians’ personal
security and their civilian dead as an explanation for the escalation is
another example of how cheap Palestinian life is in Israeli eyes.
B'Tselem,
relying on the testimony of a Palestinian eyewitness who approached
her, noted that Hashlamoun (yes, a veiled woman!) was holding a knife.
So even the assertion of the learned investigation that there was a
knife in the area is not exactly an exciting revelation. But Hashlamoun
did not stab any soldier (as opposed to the impression given by the
initial reports of her death). She didn’t even get close enough for the
knife to graze his rifle. While she was lying on the ground, wounded,
she could have been arrested. But the soldiers shot her repeatedly.
There is especially no
surprise in the IDF's decision not to take any steps against the
soldiers, who, according to the investigation, did not have to kill. It
was the first incident in which they were involved, it was reported, and
they felt their lives were in danger. For heaven’s sake, what kind of
military training do the soldiers receive, when a knife held by a girl
at a distance of some meters scares them so much? (Answer: four months
of basic training and two months of advanced training, according to the
Givati Brigade website.) And how many Palestinians are the soldiers
allowed to kill until they get rid of “a sense that their lives are in
danger” and begin to internalize their lethal, terrorizing power?
The “first incident”
explanation is a weak excuse designed to conceal the fact that in the
past month, many other soldiers acted like those of the Tzabar
battalion: They killed instead of arresting. Punishing them would have
required punishing other soldiers who “felt that their lives were in
danger” and easily took a life. Do you remember the yeshiva student
Simcha Hodedtov, who was killed by soldiers on October 22 as he got off
the bus? Isn’t killing him proof of the victory of solldierly feelings,
which we hold more sacred than life?
The fact is that the
IDF permits its soldiers to be the prosecutors, witnesses, judges and
hangmen of every Palestinian — and to carry out a death sentence on the
spot. That’s nothing new. And yes, it’s another explanation for the
desperate decision by individual Palestinians to embark on stabbing
campaigns against Israeli civilians, including the elderly.
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