Israeli officials released video footage of the moment a 28-year-old Palestinian man, Ahmed Erekat, was shot and killed after his car rammed into a security checkpoint, injuring a female officer who you can see was flung into the air:
Border Police footage of Ahmad Erekat's vehicle plowing into an Israeli officer at a checkpoint outside Abu Dis yesterday before he got out of the car and was shot by other cops at the scene pic.twitter.com/6jZLgeDljb
— Jacob Magid (@JacobMagid) June 24, 2020
Ahmad Erekat is the causing of senior Palestinian official Saeb Erekat:
Nearly all the coverage has been about how this man was minding his own business and on the way to a family wedding — which means the coverage has been entirely misleading. Not surprising, but not right. https://t.co/Vr8QHaMbAX
— Joel C. Rosenberg (@JoelCRosenberg) June 24, 2020
Noura Erekat, also a cousin and a professor at Rutgers University, accused Israel of murdering Ahmed:
Israeli soldiers shot to kill my baby cousin, Ahmed, left him to bleed out for 1.5 hours. He was 27, he deserved to live. Israeli cowards claim it was a car ramming incident – he was on his way to pick up his sister from the salon for her wedding tonight! https://t.co/lqA6V72CwB
— Noura Erakat (@4noura) June 23, 2020
The Border Police deny that they let Erekat “bleed out.” From the Times of Israel:
Responding to the allegations, a Border Police spokesman told The Times of Israel that forces provided medical attention to the assailant within minutes, but were forced to declare the suspect’s death minutes later.
Footage from the scene after Erekat had been shot shows him bleeding, but still moving. The Border Police spokesman said the video in question had been filmed in the minutes before medics arrived at the scene.
Erekat’s family speculated that he accidentally rammed into the officer and the security booth:
Ahmed Erekat's family believes the incident was an "accident or loss of control over the vehicle." He was shot dead by border police hours before his sister's wedding and one month before his own https://t.co/KUv2if50Pe
— Haaretz.com (@haaretzcom) June 24, 2020
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