On Monday night, 5 April 2021, soldiers entered the towns of Bir Nabala and al-Jib north of Jerusalem, searched homes and fired tear gas canisters at Palestinian children and teens, who threw stones at them. After midnight, at around 2:30 A.M. on 6 April, about four military vehicles drove along the road that runs between the two towns. They stopped by a traffic island in the middle of the road or in nearby alleys, and the soldiers got out and stood by them.
Shortly afterwards, Osama (45) and Sumayah (35) Mansur, parents of five from the village of Bidu, drove along the road on their way home from a medical clinic in Bir Nabala. One of the soldiers motioned them with a flashlight, and Osama Mansur stopped the car.
After a brief argument with the soldiers, Mansur resumed driving. At that point, the soldiers opened fire at the car, injuring Mansur in the head. Sumayah, who was wounded by shrapnel, grabbed the wheel, pressed down on the gas and continued driving for 700 meters until she stopped by the roadside. Residents arrived and took the couple to a clinic in Bidu. From there, they were transferred to hospital in Ramallah, where Mansur underwent surgery. He was pronounced dead about an hour later. Soldiers confiscated Mansur’s car and a few hours later, also confiscated the recording devices of security cameras overlooking the scene of the incident, belonging to two businesses nearby.
B’Tselem’s investigation indicates that there were no soldiers in the car’s lane when Mansur resumed driving, and that the soldiers opened fire as soon as he the car began moving again. The incident took place several meters from the flying checkpoint, and about 20 meters from other soldiers who were standing by the traffic island further down the road. Afterwards, the soldiers opened a volley of fire at the car, both from the flying checkpoint and from the traffic island.
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Scene of the incident. Photo by Iyad Hadad, B’Tselem, 6 April 2021
The military announced the immediate launch of an MPIU investigation. Yet based on years of experience, this is unlikely to result in anything other than whitewashing, which is the purpose of these investigations – to provide a fig leaf by creating a show of a functioning law enforcement system and to silence criticism.
In a testimony she gave B’Tselem field researcher Iyad Hadad on 7 April 2021, Sumayah Mansur recounted what happened when she and her husband drove up to the flying checkpoint:
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Sumayah Mansur. Photo by Iyad Hadad, B’Tselem, 7 April 2021
When we reached Bir Nabala, we were surprised to see two military jeeps parked sideways on the road, next to the traffic island. I didn’t notice whether there were any other military vehicles there. Further down the road, after the jeeps, two other soldiers were standing close to the traffic island, about 20 meters away from the first ones. One of the soldiers closest to us motioned us with a flashlight to stop. I told Osama, “It looks like the military’s here, Osama, stop.” Osama stopped several meters away from the soldiers. I didn’t see any traffic cones or spikes on the road to stop us. One of the soldiers came over to the driver’s side and started shouting at Osama in Hebrew, “Why didn’t you stop? I waved at you to stop from far away, and but you didn’t.” Even though Osama had stopped, he answered the soldier in Hebrew, “I didn’t see you. Believe me, I’m so exhausted I didn’t notice you.” The soldier asked him, “Where are you from and where are you going?” Osama answered that we’d been at the doctor’s and were on our way back to our village, Bidu. He didn’t ask for our IDs, for the car documents or for anything else. We were driving a “mashtubah” (unlicensed vehicle).
After that, Osama started driving again, and one of the soldiers fired a bullet that hit the back of the car. I started screaming, “Osama, Osama, they’re shooting at us! Stop! Stop, or they’ll kill us!” He said to me, “Stop? They’ll spray us with bullets.” He sped up, and a massive volley of bullets hit the car from behind. The soldiers who were up ahead weren’t in our lane, but they also started shooting at us, even before we’d come near. Bullets and glass shards were flying everywhere. I think at least three bullets hit the car in front, and dozens penetrated it from behind. I was so scared that I hid my head between my legs to duck the bullets. The car started zigzagging. I told Osama I was injured, because I felt things hitting me in the back. He told me, “I’ve been hit, too.” Then he went quiet. Those were his last words. I saw he’d been hit in the head. He wasn’t saying anything and his body was leaning towards me. I thought he wouldn’t be able to drive like that, so I pressed down on the gas and steered the car to avoid running into anything. When I thought we were out of the soldiers’ sight and range, I stopped on the right side of the road and pulled the handbrake. I was in shock. I screamed at my husband, who was unconscious, “Osama! Osama!” but he didn’t react.
B.’A. (57), who lives on the street where the incident occurred, came home after his wife notified him that soldiers were firing tear gas canisters nearby. After the tear gas fire stopped, the couple stayed up. In a testimony he gave B’Tselem field researcher Iyad Hadad on 6 April 2021, he recalled:
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The windshield of the couple’s car, pierced by bullets.
At around 2:30 A.M., my wife and I were still awake. I heard the military vehicles come back to our area. I saw about five of them on the traffic island in front of our home and about 10 soldiers standing outside. I assumed they were planning to raid a store or someone’s home. There was hardly any traffic and the soldiers didn’t stop the cars that were passing by. The road was well-lit and I was watching it from the porch with my children.
Soon after that, I saw a private car coming from the direction of Bir Nabala. It was driving at average speed. When it was about 10 meters from the soldiers, one of them motioned the driver to stop. The car stopped and three soldiers went over to the driver’s side. I heard one of them shouting at the driver in Hebrew, which I understand well. The soldier asked him why he hadn’t stopped, and the driver replied that he had stopped, and they continued arguing. After less than a minute, the car drove away. At that moment, there were no soldiers in front of it. The car had gone only a few meters when the soldiers called out the driver to stop, but he didn’t. They opened fire at the car from behind, yelling “Stop! Stop!”
I heard a single gunshot, followed by a massive volley. At first, I heard bullets hit the rear window of the car and heard it shatter, but I can’t say for sure how many bullets hit it. Once the car was hit, it started zigzagging. It almost crashed into something or into the sidewalk more than three times, but every time straightened out and kept going. After the car had gone about half a kilometer, it was out of my sight. Then the shooting stopped. While the shooting was going on, I saw three or four soldiers kneeling in a sniping position. I was pretty sure the passengers had been hit, because so many bullets had been fired at them.
About 10 to 15 minutes later, the military vehicles headed towards the village of al-Jib, about half a kilometer away. I decided to go there and see what was happening. I stopped about 100 meters from the military vehicles and from a Palestinian ambulance that had arrived and was standing by the damaged car.
An hour or an hour and a half after the incident, soldiers and Border Police officers came back to the area and collected the empty shell casings from the road. In the morning, I saw some casings that the forces must have missed.
A few minutes after Sumayah Mansur stopped the car, about 700 meters from the flying checkpoint, several young men arrived and took the couple to a clinic in Bidu, where Osama was given first aid. Within minutes, an ambulance drove the couple to hospital in Ramallah, taking a roundabout route to avoid encountering soldiers. Osama arrived at the hospital unconscious. He was taken to the trauma ward and from there to the operating room. Sumayah was examined and treated for injuries from shrapnel and broken glass. Osama was pronounced dead about an hour later.
In her testimony, Sumayah further recounted:
I kept asking my relatives and my husband’s relatives, who had come to the hospital, how Osama was doing, but they didn’t give me clear answers. I was terribly anxious, and they only told me at 5:00 A.M. that Osama had passed away.
Half an hour later, I was discharged with a painkiller prescription and disinfectants for my wounds.
Whoever killed my husband broke my heart. He was my soulmate, and they made five children orphans. May God have mercy on his soul. He’d just been released two months ago from detention for illegally entering Israel. They very quickly nipped our joy at being reunited, and at his seeing the children again, in the bud.
On 19 November 2021, media reports stated that the case was still under investigation. On 1 June 2022, the IDF Spokesperson informed B’Tselem that the case had been closed without an indictment.
On Sunday, 7 January 2024, at around 5:00 P.M., Muhammad and Duha Abu ‘Eid, a couple from the village of Bidu in al-Quds District, arrived at the military checkpoint at the entrance to Beit Iksa. They accelerated into the checkpoint and hit a Border Police officer, lightly injuring her. Two officers who were standing next to her and were not injured opened heavy fire, killing the couple and firing more than 30 bullets at a shared taxi that was crossing the checkpoint ahead of the couple’s car. One of the bullets hit Ruqayah Jahalin, 4, who was traveling in the taxi with her family.The taxi driver continued driving until he was a few meters past the checkpoint, and then stopped. The passengers, who feared the officers would shoot them if they came out, waited in the taxi with the wounded Ruqayah. About fifteen minutes later, Ruqayah stopped breathing, and the taxi driver mustered the courage to tell the officers there was a wounded child in the taxi. The officers took the mother and daughter to a Magen David Adom ambulance that arrived at the scene, where paramedics attempted resuscitation to no avail. The mother remained in the ambulance with her daughter’s body for about an hour, at which point the officers removed the body and placed it on the ground, a few meters away from the bodies of the couple from the first car.After about half an hour, Ahmad Jahalin, Ruqayah’s father, arrived. He and his wife were kept at the checkpoint, where they were interrogated, until after midnight. They were then allowed to go home, but without their daughter’s body, which was left lying on the ground. It was not until 16 January 2024, nine days after Ruqayah was killed, that the military returned her body to her family.B’Tselem field researcher Iyad Hadad collected testimonies from the mother and from the taxi driver on 10 January 2024:‘Aishah Jahalin, 39, a mother of six, said:On Sunday, 7 January 2024, I was with my four children, Marwa, Rahmeh, Ruqayah and Muhammad, on a family visit in Beit Hanina al-Balad. At 4:50 P.M., we set out to go home to the village of Beit Iksa. We were riding in a shared Ford Transit taxi. I knew the driver. There were two women from the village, whom I don’t know, with us in the taxi. One was sitting next to the driver and the other behind him. I was sitting next to the one behind the driver, and the children were sitting next to me and behind me.We got to the checkpoint at 5:00 P.M. We were between 15 and 20 meters away from the first gate, waiting for a signal from the police. There were no cars ahead of us. After a minute or two, the gate opened and the driver advanced and stopped in front of the inspection room, in the middle of the checkpoint. There were a policewoman and two policemen there. The policewoman took ID cards from the driver, the two other women and me. She looked at us, gave us back the IDs and let the driver through. We were about 10 meters away from the second checkpoint gate, and the driver was driving slowly towards it.Suddenly, I heard a commotion and police officers shouting, and then heavy gunfire started behind us. The bullets penetrated the taxi and glass shards flew everywhere. I put my head down immediately and hid behind the driver’s seat. Everyone else did, too. I pulled Muhammad down to the floor of the taxi, in front of me. Then I turned around and pulled Ruqayah, too. That’s when I discovered she was wounded. There clothes on her back had blood on them and she was crying. I sat her in my lap and tried to calm her down. The seconds that passed until the shooting stopped felt like a year. Meanwhile, the driver kept driving, passed the gate and then veered right and stopped.I wanted to get out of the taxi to ask for help for Ruqayah, but the driver told me they’d shoot me if I went out. I sat with Ruqayah inside the taxi. She was in a lot of pain. There was a big commotion outside. A lot of forces came, of all kinds, and they all gathered near the inspection room, around a car that must have come after us. I didn’t understand what happened exactly.About 15 minutes later, Ruqayah went silent. She wasn’t moving or breathing. The driver called out to one of the police officers, and he answered something I didn’t understand. It was only then that I dared get out of the taxi with Ruqayah. One of the police officers saw me and asked what I wanted. I told him my daughter was injured. He didn’t understand what happened and how she was injured, so I told him the police officers shot her.The officer took me to a Magen David Adom ambulance that was there. I don’t know when it got there. They put me and Ruqayah in the ambulance, put her on the bed and hooked her up to oxygen. They tried to give her CPR, but it didn’t help. Then they gave her electrical shocks, but it didn’t help either. She didn’t respond. They tried for a few minutes and then the paramedic told me he was sorry, but Ruqayah was dead.They closed the ambulance door and left me in there for about an hour. No one spoke to me. I sat there, holding Ruqayah and crying. After about an hour, they took her, laid her by the side of the road and covered her. They told me to stand aside, 10 meters away from her.I asked them to call my husband. I was scared. My whole body was shaking. I didn’t know what was going to happen. After about half an hour, my husband Ahmad came. Some people questioned Ahmad and me. One said he was a police officer and another said he was from the army. I was in shock and didn’t really answer their questions, so they directed most of the questions to Ahmad. I saw two more bodies by the side of the road, covered in an aluminum blanket.About 40 minutes after Ahmad arrived, I saw the driver was back. He said he’d driven the children to our house in the village. The police checked the taxi and interrogated the driver. At 11:00 P.M., they brought a tow truck that took the taxi and the other car away. They only let us leave until midnight, but they wouldn’t let us take Ruqayah’s body with us. They still have it. They’re saying it’s in order to complete the investigation and run forensic tests [the body was returned to the family on 16 January].The taxi driver said:I work the line between Beit Iksa and nearby villages. On Sunday, 7 January 2024, at 4:45 P.M., I drove seven passengers from the Bidu roundabout to Beit Iksa: Two women, one of whom sat next to me and the other behind me, and a mother with four children. The mother sat in the middle seat in the middle row, with some of her children next to her and some in the back seat.We got to the checkpoint at 5:00 P.M., and I followed the instructions. I stopped in front of the “stop” sign and after less than a minute, the police officers opened the gate and one of them signaled for me to advance. There were two policemen and a policewoman there. I advanced until the taxi was next to the guards’ room. The policewoman asked for the ID cards of the people in the taxi. She checked them and then gave them back to us and opened the gate for us. I drove on slowly.I drove towards the second gate, which had already been opened. When I was about five meters away from it, and ten meters from the police officers, shots were fired at us from behind. There was panic and shouting in the taxi. I put my head down and hit the gas pedal to get away from there. Bullets shattered the rear window and entered the car. I drove about ten meters without seeing anything in front of me. After I went through the second gate, the engine went off. I must have taken my foot off the clutch in confusion.The shooting stopped after less than a minute, but even then, I was still in shock and didn’t even know if I’d been hit. I asked everyone to check themselves and the passengers said they weren’t hurt, except for one girl who I later found out was named Ruqayah. I called the Bidu village ambulance and told them a little girl was injured in a taxi at the checkpoint. The ambulance from Bidu arrived within five minutes. It stopped far from the checkpoint and turned on the siren, but they didn’t let it in. Then police cars arrived, followed by more soldiers and police officers.After about 15 minutes or so, Magen David Adom ambulances arrived, I don’t know how many. It was only then that I dared stick my head out of the window, and I called out to the police in Hebrew that I had an injured child with me. The police officer immediately called the paramedics and the mother got out with her girl and went towards the area of the checkpoint. They opened the gate for her and took her with the girl to one of the ambulances. Her other children stayed with me.I asked one of the officers if I could leave, because I had little children with me, and he told me to wait. After five minutes, another police officer arrived and ordered me to leave. I drove towards Beit Iksa, about 200 meters past the checkpoint, where I met the children’s relatives and they took them. I drove on to the village, dropped off the other two passengers and went home.At 6:20 P.M., “Captain Fares” called me and said I had to come back to the checkpoint with the taxi. I went back there and stood in the right lane. There were a military investigator and police investigators there. They searched me and asked me some questions about what happened. They took photos of the taxi.I saw two bodies lying on the road, wrapped in aluminum foil. I later found out they were a couple. The girl’s body was five meters away from them. She was covered in white gauze. The mother and her husband were standing 20 meters away from me, surrounded by investigators who were probably questioning them.The investigators and I counted more than thirty bullet marks on the taxi, most of them on the right side. Some of them went through the back seat. At 7:00 P.M., they put my taxi on a tow truck and took it away from there. I was put in a military vehicle and taken to Ofer prison.I waited there for about half an hour, and then they searched me and put me in a room with someone who introduced himself as “Abu Rami.” He showed me videos from a security camera. I couldn’t see anything clearly. They took down my information and contact details. The interrogation was over after about 20 minutes and then I waited for them to take me back to the checkpoint. At about 11:00 P.M., they dropped me off there. The bodies were still there.I crossed the checkpoint on foot and my brother picked me up on the other side and drove me home.
On Thursday, 19 January 2023, at around 2:30 A.M., Israeli troops entered Jenin Refugee Camp. Local youths threw stones at them as soon as they arrived, and the Israeli military claims explosives were thrown as well. Some soldiers made their way into the camp, while others climbed onto the roof of a building. Several entered an apartment on the fifth floor of the building, ordered its occupants to go to another apartment, and then engaged in an exchange of fire with armed Palestinians who were hiding in an alley in the camp. At around 4:00 A.M., one of the Palestinian gunmen, Adham Jabarin (26), an Islamic Jihad military wing operative, went towards the nearby camp square. Soldiers who were in the building, about 150 meters away, shot and severely wounded him. Neighborhood resident Alaa Bawaqneh (34) heard young men calling for help and went outside to see what was happening. She saw Jabarin, whom she did not know, lying wounded near the eastern corner of her building. She managed to drag him about three meters towards her house and then her father, Jawwad Bawaqneh (57), came out and helped her drag him a few more meters to their doorway. All the while, the two heard gunfire close by. When they got to the doorway, a soldier fired two shots from the building the soldiers were hiding in, hitting the father in the upper body. He fell face down. The family managed to get the father into their inner courtyard, out of the soldiers’ firing range. A volunteer paramedic who was in the area arrived and, with Alaa’s help, drove Jawwad in the family’s car to hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Shortly afterwards, Jabarin was also taken to hospital and he, too, was pronounced dead. The troops left the camp after arresting three residents, including one who lived in the building from which they fired. All three were released soon after. The IDF Spokesperson stated that “during activity in Jenin Refugee Camp, the forces fired at gunmen who fired massively at them, and hits were detected,” adding that one soldier was lightly injured and treated in hospital. stated that “during activity in Jenin Refugee Camp, the forces fired at gunmen who fired massively at them, and hits were detected,” adding that one soldier was lightly injured and treated in hospital. A sniper shot and killed an unarmed civilian who was trying to give a wounded man first aid. The victim posed a threat to no one, certainly not to the soldiers who were far away from him and well-protected. B’Tselem’s findings raise a strong suspicion that Bawaqneh was deliberately killed, without any justification. The IDF Spokesperson’s response and past experience clearly indicate that no one will be held to account for killing Bawaqneh – the sniper who fired the shot, the commanders who allowed it, the legal advisors who signed off on the orders the higher military command. B’Tselem field researcher Abdulkarim Sadi spoke with Jawwad Bawaqneh’s relatives and with eyewitnesses on 19 and 22 January 2023. Alaa Bawaqneh (34) said: On Thursday, 19 January 2023, at around 2:30 A.M., my sister and I were in our room when we heard the alarm the young guys usually sound to warn residents of a military raid. A few moments later, we heard gunfire and explosions start up in areas near the camp center. My father, Jawwad, called us all to gather in my parents’ bedroom because it’s the safest room in the house. Our windows have been hit by soldiers’ gunfire before. At around 4:00 A.M., we heard shouting outside. Young guys were calling out for first aid and an ambulance. We gathered a guy was hit near our house. Before that, I read on social media that the military told the Palestinian DCO ambulances and journalists were forbidden to move around the camp without coordinating with them. Despite the warnings, I couldn’t ignore the shouting outside. I felt a human and emotional obligation to help him. I went quickly went out towards the eastern corner of our building and found a young man I didn’t know there, lying on his back and unable to move. He was bleeding heavily and didn’t say anything. I pulled him by the arm and he groaned in pain. I told him I was pulling him to our doorway to get him out of the line of fire and to try and help him. I asked him to try to help me get there but he couldn’t move. I managed to drag him two or three meters, even though there was massive gunfire all around us. I focused on trying to help. Then my father came to help me. He was in his pajamas. He grabbed the guy by the other arm and together, we managed to drag him about eight meters to our front door. I heard live fire closer to us, and suddenly saw my father falling slowly to the ground. He hit his head against the doorway and landed next to the wounded guy. I was in shock. Horrified. Those were terrifying moments. My mother, brothers and I pulled my father into our inner courtyard. I saw bullet wounds in his upper body. Then a young guy in a paramedic’s uniform came and helped us get my father into our car. I drove quickly to Ibn Sina Hospital. I didn’t care about the shooting, I just wanted to get my father to hospital quickly. I reached the trauma unit and the doctors there tried to save him, but he passed away. Volunteer paramedic S.M. said: At a round 2:30 A.M., I was at home in the western part of the camp. I was woken by the alarm warning of an army raid. I immediately iput on the al-Ighathah al-Tibiyeh (Palestinian Medical Aid Association) vest, took the first aid kit and headed towards the camp center. At around 3:30, I was at the center with friends and other volunteers, giving first aid to a young guy who was shot by soldiers. Then the guys took him to hospital. I heard people shouting there was an injured guy nearby who needed first aid and an ambulance. I headed towards the sound of the shouting alone, through alleyways. I knew there were Israeli snipers on the rooftops and saw on social media that the army was forbidding ambulances and journalists from moving around. When I reached the injured guy, I found Jawwad Bawaqneh and his daughter there, trying to drag him to their doorway. Just as I was in front of their home, I saw Jawwad shot and fall slowly, face down, at his doorway. I reached them and, with the help of his family, we got Jawwad into the courtyard. The wounded guy, Adham Taha (Jabarin), was lying motionless in the doorway, but I couldn’t check him because of the sniper fire. Jawwad was bleeding heavily from the chest and abdomen. I tried pressing with pads on the wounds to stop the bleeding, but it didn’t help. We put him in the family car right away. His daughter Alaa drove, and I went with them to Ibn Sina Hospital nearby. We got there within a few minutes and the doctors tried to save Jawwad’s life, but he died of the fatal injuries to his chest and abdomen. While we were in the trauma unit, they also brought in the young guy, Adham, who arrived lifeless. A resident of one of the apartments from which the soldiers fired said: At first, six soldiers came in. One of them signaled to us not to move. Another turned off the lights in the living room. I heard a soldier break the lamp above the front door to the building, outside. Another soldier brought in a stand about one meter high. He moved the dining table that’s in the kitchen, which is connected to the living room. One of the soldiers fixed a long rifle to the stand. The soldiers went into all the rooms and checked them. A few minutes later, one of them ordered us to go from the living room to another room. We went into that room, and two soldiers who had flashlights on their helmets stood guard at the door. We heard shots fired from the living room, which overlooks the main square of the camp. Then another soldier arrived. I think it was the commanding officer. He spoke in Hebrew to the two soldiers. I know abit of Hebrew, and I understood he was telling them to move us to another apartment in the building, which they did. He continued: At around 5:00 A.M., the gunfire stopped and we couldn’t hear the soldiers moving around anymore. We went back to the apartment and found it almost destroyed. The soldiers took the mattress out of the bedroom and used it as a shield. They knocked everything the kitchen counter. We also found holes in the curtains. While we were cleaning up I found the casing of of the bullet the soldiers shot at the young men. They didn’t leave behind any other casings than the one I found. It was a difficult, frightening experience for us and for the neighbors.
On Monday, 14 November 2022, at around 4:00 A.M., dozens of soldiers entered the town of Bitunya, near Ramallah. They arrested a local resident in his home, tied his hands behind his back and led him to the ground floor of a building across the street. Just then, Anas Hasunah (26) drove by in a car with Fullah Maluh (14), a girl on the autism spectrum, sitting next to him. The soldiers – some of whom were guarding the detainee and others standing further down the street – opened fire at the car, hitting both Hasunah and Maluh. The car kept moving for several meters and stopped. The soldiers then went over to it and pulled out the wounded Maluh. According to eyewitnesses, they administered first aid for a short while and then covered her body. Hasunah, who was wounded in the right arm, received first aid from the soldiers and was then taken, along with Maluh’s body, to the Ofer military camp. The body was returned to Maluh’s family in a Red Crescent ambulance. From the military camp, Hasunah was taken to Shaare Zedek Hospital in Jerusalem, where he underwent surgery and then soldiers informed him he was under arrest on suspicion of trying to run over soldiers. He was interrogated at the hospital the next day. On 17 November 2022, he was discharged from hospital and went home with no further action taken against him. After the incident, the IDF Spokesperson said that a military force identified a “suspicious vehicle advancing in its direction. The force signaled the driver of the vehicle to stop, but he accelerated towards the force. In response, the force fired at the vehicle.” Hasunah, however, told B’Tselem he did not notice the soldiers before they fired at him, and eyewitnesses said that when they caught sight of the car, immediately after the first shots were fired at it, it was driving at a normal speed. Hiyam ‘Armush (67) from the neighborhood of al-Madares in Bitunya, spoke about the incident in a testimony she gave B’Tselem field researcher Iyad Hadad on 14 November 2022: On Monday, 14 November 2022, at around 4:00 A.M., my husband woke me up and told me there were soldiers in the neighborhood. I looked out the kitchen window that overlooks the main street and saw jeeps parked on the street, no more than 70 meters away from our house. It was a rainy night, but the street lights were on and so were the headlights of the jeeps. I noticed two soldiers walking towards our neighbors’ house, across from where the jeeps were parked. At first, I thought they wanted to take shelter from the rain, but later I realized they were raiding the house to arrest one of the neighbors’ sons. I saw three jeeps and another big jeep. I don’t know if there were any other jeeps there. After a little while, I saw more than 20 soldiers coming out of the neighbors’ house, leading one of the sons with his hands tied behind his back. The soldiers took him to a side road east of our house. There’s a residential building across from us that has some businesses and a grocery store on the ground floor, and the neighbors park their cars there. My husband and I went to another window in our house to see what they were doing, but we couldn’t quite tell what was going on there. Then the soldiers led the neighbors’ son towards the storerooms on the ground floor of our building. I started heading back to the kitchen to watch them. As I was going through the rooms in the house, I heard three live shots. It sounded like it was coming from the storerooms under our house. I looked out the window right away and saw a car drive up from below and pass by our building. The headlights were on and it was driving at a normal speed. I don’t know how many people were in it, but I could clearly see the driver and a passenger sitting next to him. My husband and I were afraid of the shooting and ducked down a little. More shots were fired at the car as it advanced a few dozen meters ahead, until it stopped at the corner of the intersection. The gunfire was totally insane. There were no shots coming from inside the car. As soon as the car stopped, about 10 soldiers went over to it and violently pulled out two people. I saw them take out a wounded young man from the driver’s side, throw him on the ground and start checking and searching him. From the other side they pulled out a girl, it was obvious from her clothes. As soon as they pulled her out of the car, I saw a man, I guess he was a paramedic, cut her clothes and start CPR on her. She was probably dying or about to die. He tried for a few seconds, and then they left her and went over to the young man. They treated him and then led him away and put him in the jeep. He seemed to be having trouble walking. Then they put the girl on a stretcher and tried to put her in one of the jeeps, but put the stretcher back down on the ground. They did that more than once. After 15 to 20 minutes, they led the neighbor they’d arrested from storeroom area to one of the jeeps and put him inside it. Then they put the stretcher with the girl in the jeep with the injured young man and left the area. After they left, I went outside with my husband and sons and other residents of the neighborhood. We went over to the car the soldiers shot at. I saw blood stains on the seats and gunshot marks all over the vehicle, in the front and back and on the sides. The windows were shattered and had bullet holes in them. I saw cut-up clothes, probably the girl’s. I also saw a jacket and shirt that I think belonged to the young man. After five or ten more minutes, while we were still standing next to the car, the soldiers came back, so we dispersed and hurried back to our homes. We saw them inspect the car once again. I don’t know what they were looking for. I saw them taking pictures of the car, too. They stayed for a few minutes and then left.
