Description

HEBRON (Ma'an) -- Israeli settlers on Friday gathered outside the home of a human rights worker in Hebron to hurl abuse at him, a day after he captured on camera an Israeli soldier's killing of a wounded Palestinian that has sparked international outcry.

Emad Abu Shamsiya, a staff member with Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, told Ma’an after settlers threatened him: “I now fear for my life and the life of my family. I’m afraid they might attack my house and do me harm.”

He added that he fears the possibility of suffering the same fate as the Dawabsha family, who were killed in an arson attack committed by settlers last year in the village of Duma in the occupied West Bank.

Palestinian residents of Hebron Abed al-Fattah Yusri al-Sharif and Ramzi Aziz al-Qasrawi, both 21 years old, were shot down Thursday after allegedly stabbing and moderately wounding an Israeli soldier near a military checkpoint in Hebron’s Old City.

Shamsiya recorded rare video footage of an Israeli soldier shooting al-Sharif in the head at point-blank range in plain view of the medical team after he had already been shot at least once and left motionless on the ground.

The incident has brought a barrage of condemnations from the Israeli leadership and led Israel's army to detain the soldier responsible and launch an investigation.

The release of the graphic video has called attention to what rights groups, international leaders, and Palestinian officials call a policy of "extrajudicial executions" by Israel against Palestinians, since a wave of unrest swept the occupied Palestinian territory and Israel last October.

UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Nickolay Mladenov said Friday he strongly condemned the apparent "extrajudicial execution" of al-Sharif.

"This was a gruesome, immoral, and unjust act that can only fuel more violence and escalate an already volatile situation," Mladenov said.

Tel Rumeida -- where Shamsiya’s house is located and the site of the Thursday’s incident -- has long been a flashpoint for tensions between Palestinians and Israeli settlers and military, and is location to an illegal Israeli settlement.

Mistreatment of Palestinians in the Hebron area has been common since the city was divided in the 1990s after a US-born settler, Baruch Goldstein, massacred 29 Palestinians inside the Ibrahimi Mosque.

The majority of the city was placed under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority, while the Old City and surrounding areas were placed under Israeli military control in a sector known as H2.

The area is home to 30,000 Palestinians and around 800 Israeli settlers who live under the protection of Israeli forces. Hebron residents frequently report attacks and harassment by the settlers carried out in the presence of the forces.