Israeli police kill disabled Palestinian in East Jerusalem

Israeli police in annexed East Jerusalem on Saturday shot dead a disabled Palestinian they mistakenly thought was armed with a pistol, prompting furious condemnation from the Palestinians.

The incident happened in the alleys of the walled Old City near Lions’ Gate, an access point mainly used by Palestinians. “Police units on patrol there spotted a suspect with a suspicious object that looked like a pistol,” an Israeli police statement said.

“They called upon him to stop and began to chase after him on foot. During the chase, officers also opened fire at the suspect, who was neutralized.

“No weapon was found at the scene after the area was searched,” the statement said.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party denounced the killing as a “war crime.”

HIGHLIGHT

Israeli police mistakenly thought the disabled man was armed with a pistol.

It said it held Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fully responsible for the “execution of a young disabled man.”

The Palestinian leadership demanded that whoever killed the man be brought before the International Criminal Court.

The Palestinians’ official news agency Wafa identified the dead man as Iyad Khairi Hallak, a resident of the Wadi Joz neighborhood of East Jerusalem with special needs.

“Today, Israeli Occupation Forces in East Jerusalem assassinated Iyad Khairi, 32, a disabled Palestinian,” Saeb Erekat, the secretary-general of the Palestine Liberation Organization, wrote on Twitter.

The killing is a “crime that will be met with impunity unless the world stops treating Israel as a state above the law,” he said.

Erekat added the hashtags #PalestineWillBeFree and #ICantBreath — a reference to AfricanAmerican man George Floyd whose death while a policeman kneeled on his neck has sparked riots in the US.