Killing of autistic Palestinian by Israel draws Floyd parallel
Whenever a person is martyred here, we say that we hope for change. Where is the change? says Hallaq’s father; Palestinians protest against Israel’s plans to annex part of the territory
Eyad Hallaq liked to watch cartoons. He loved dressing up and wearing cologne. He even dreamed of getting married. But his favourite activity was walking to school, where he volunteered in the kitchen, preparing meals for his fellow special-needs students.
Early on Saturday, the 32-year-old Palestinian with severe autism was chased by Israeli border police forces into a nook in Jerusalem’s Old City and fatally shot as he cowered next to a garbage bin after apparently being mistaken for an attacker. He was just a few metres from his beloved Elwyn El Quds school.
The shooting has drawn comparisons to the death of George Floyd in the US and prompted a series of small demonstrations against police violence towards Palestinians. The calls for justice have crossed Jewish-arab lines, a rarity in this deeply polarised society.
Yet for his devastated family, such gestures have provided little comfort and even less hope that the officers who shot Hallaq will be punished.
“Whenever a person is martyred here, we say that we hope for change,” said Hallaq’s father, Khiri. “Where is the change?” Two large photographs of Hallaq sit in the living room of the family’s modest home in a Palestinian neighbourhood of east Jerusalem. In one photo, wearing an Adidas sweatshirt, Hallaq holds a cactus he planted during the coronavirus lockdown. It was the last photo the family took of him. His tiny bedroom is neatly made up, with a small photo of Hallaq above the pillow, next to his cologne collection.
“He was a gentle soul,” his mother, Rana, said as she fought back tears. She described him as intensely shy, afraid of strangers, unable to make eye contact and terrified of loud noises.
“He liked nice clothes, but he had no friends. He didn’t talk to others. Only with me would he talk about what had happened that day at school,” she said.
What exactly happened on Saturday morning remains unclear. According to the family, Hallaq, wearing a badge that identified him as having special needs, left home on his daily walk to school, about 10 minutes away.
Police said that officers in the Old City spotted a man carrying a “suspicious object that looked like a pistol.” When the man failed to heed calls to stop, police said they opened fire and “neutralised” him after a chase.
Hallaq’s teacher, who had accompanied him on that last walk to school, told Israel’s Channel 13 TV that she repeatedly cried out to the police that he is “disabled” and tried to stop the shooting. “They didn’t listen to me. They didn’t want to listen to me,” she said.
She told the station they fired three bullets at him. He fell to the ground, asked her for help, then ran for cover in a small area housing a garbage bin. Officers came after him and killed him. At least five bullet holes could be seen in the wall of a small structure at the site.
Hallaq’s parents said they rushed to the scene but were not allowed to see him. Police later came to the house, cursing them as they searched for weapons, they said. They said police found nothing in the home.
Meanwhile, Palestinians in the West Bank on Friday rallied to mark 53 years of Israeli occupation and protest against the Jewish state’s plans to annex part of the territory. In Tulkarem, in the northern West Bank, dozens of demonstrators waved Palestinian flags and chanted slogans against Israeli settlements and the plans, which could move ahead as soon as next month.
A reporter at the scene said that Israeli troops fired stun grenades and tear gas to repel protesters approaching a military checkpoint.
Further protests were expected in the West Bank cities of Ramallah, Hebron and Nablus.
Palestinians are vocal in their opposition to US President Donald Trump’s Middle East plan, which gives Israel the green light to annex Jewish settlements and other strategic territory in the West Bank.
Such annexations would violate international law and likely inflame tensions in the volatile region.
After more than a year of political deadlock and two inconclusive elections, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his nearest rival Benny Gantz in April joined in a coalition government.