Lawyers accuse the Israeli police of Killing 47 Palestinians
They say the killings were racially motivated
Jerusalem24 – Lawyers and representatives of Palestinian victims in Israel stated that the Israeli police are accused of racially motivated killings of 47 Palestinians.
After a careful examination carried out by the Musawah Center, it was made clear that the victims were unarmed and were victims of policies that made it easier for Israelis to open fire on Palestinians in Israel.
The families considered the Israeli government and the Ministry of Justice a partner in the process of protecting violent policemen due to the unprofessional and lack of any serious investigations, which lead to the failure to file criminal charges against the murdering policemen.
The director of the Musawah Center, Jaafar Farah, reviewed the killings by the police, the investigations that took place afterward and the decisions of the Israeli Public Prosecutor which recommended closing 45 of the 47 cases since October 2000.
The parents of Muhammad Kiwan, who was killed last year in May 2021 in Umm El-Fahem, considered that “the investigation with the policemen was unprofessional and biased, to the extent that the Police Investigation Department did not even have a forensic laboratory to examine the data at the crime scene.”
Kiwan’s mother added that her son did not pose any danger to the police, and he did not have any weapons.
The cases of the murders of Mounir Anabtawi and Muhammad Kiwan were reviewed by the lawyer Albert Nahas, who explained that the investigations were superficial. He also stated that a large number of case files were transferred to the public prosecutor before they were ready, forcing them to request a time extension for the investigation, and the procrastination continues for years in the majority of cases.
Ami Hollander, a lawyer who is pleading in the file of Iyad Abu Raiyah’s murder said, “the police and public prosecutor’s department are responsible for following up the file disregard requests and directions from the family members and lawyers.” He also considered that what is happening is complicity with racism within the police.
Suha Salman Moussa, the Executive Director of Musawah Center, pointed out the importance of international action and building partnerships with several human rights and community organizations; especially in the United States that work on police violence and racism against non-whites.
