On 12 February 2010 Faez Ahmad Sa’id Faraj, 41, a Palestinian shoe-factory owner and father of nine from Hebron in the occupied West Bank, was shot by Israeli soldiers in the city and died shortly after.

According to Israeli human rights group B’Tselem and eyewitnesses from Hebron, at about 4pm that day Faraj was involved in a scuffle with a group of six soldiers who had met him on a road off a-Shalaleh Street in H1, the Palestinian-controlled part of the city. The reasons for the scuffle are unclear.

Faraj then walked away and the soldiers called to him to stop. When he didn’t, the soldiers fired several shots into the air and then shot at his legs from behind, from a distance of about 10 meters.

Faraj was hit in the right leg and fell to the ground. When he tried to get up the soldiers shot him again. While he was lying on the ground the soldiers shot him a third time, without approaching him. He was hit by bullets in the right thigh, the stomach and the left hand.

Although bleeding profusely from the right thigh, he was left on the ground and the soldiers did not provide him with first aid.

Israeli army officials claimed in announcements to the media that an IDF force had opened fire at Faraj when he had tried to stab one of the soldiers.

B’Tselem claims that the evidence contradicts this assertion. Whatever happened in the altercation between Faraj and the soldiers, he apparently posed no danger to them at the time he was shot. Even if he had, he no longer did so once wounded, and there was no justification for shooting him repeatedly.

B’Tselem added that Faraj had a permit to work in Israel and that they had found no evidence suggesting that he might wish to stab Israeli soldiers.

Medical evacuation interrupted

The story doesn’t end there. According to eyewitnesses to the incident, an attempt to take Faraj to hospital was also disrupted by the Israeli army.

A Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) ambulance arrived at the scene shortly after the shooting and provided Faraj with first aid. The crew put him in the ambulance and were preparing to go to ‘Aliyah Hospital. But, as the ambulance began to move, an Israeli army vehicle arrived and ordered the ambulance to stop. Farah was transferred to the army vehicle and driven away.

At around 5pm, the vehicle was seen at Gross Square in Hebron, next to an Israeli ‘Magen David Adom’ civilian ambulance.

At about 5.45pm the body of Faraj, who had died in the interim, was moved from the Israeli ambulance to a Palestinian PRCS ambulance in the area of Ras al-Jura just north of Hebron.

According to IDF statements, Faraj was seriously wounded and died from his wounds on the way to receiving treatment at an Israeli hospital.

B’Tselem criticized the disruption caused to the evacuation by transferring Faraj to a military vehicle and from there to an Israeli ambulance, when the nearest Palestinian hospital was just minutes away. They believe the delay may have cost him his life.

According to Anat Litvin of Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR-Israel), several similar cases involving ‘abducting’ of Palestinian detainees who are wounded in the course of arrest, and transferring them in Israeli ambulances to Israeli hospitals under heavy military guard have been recorded. “The Israeli medical team in this case had no right to serve the interests of the military in this way”, she said. “Their first duty is to patients, and the only consideration that can guide them is that of reaching the nearest medical centre by the fastest possible route. Risking the health of a patient to serve a military objective is a serious breach of medical ethics.”

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