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Umm el-Fahm official: Police killed residents deliberately

By DAN IZENBERG
February 21, 2001

Umm el-Fahm Deputy Mayor Suleiman Agbariya charged yesterday, during a hearing by the Or Judicial Commission of Inquiry in the Israeli Arab riots last fall, that the police had been told to kill residents of his city.

'There were clear orders to come and kill,' he said during late afternoon testimony on the second day of the public hearings, which was devoted to incidents in Umm el- Fahm, where two local youths and a resident of the Gaza Strip were killed.

Yesterday's session was calm and quiet in contrast to the previous day, when the family of 21-year-old Rami Jara , shot to death in Jatt on October 1, attacked the policeman they believe killed him.

Only the families of the two victims from Umm el-Fahm, Muhammed and Ahmed Jabarin, attended yesterday's hearing, unlike the first day, when all the families showed up. The third fatality in Umm el-Fahm was Misleh Abu Jarad, who came from Dir el-Balah.

The incidents investigated yesterday by the commission members, Supreme Court Justice Theodor Or, Nazareth District Court Deputy President Sahal Jara and Tel Aviv University Prof. Shimon Shamir, focused on the incidents in Umm el-Fahm on October 1 and 2.

On the first day of violence, policemen who took over a house on the hillside overlooking the main highway, shot and killed Ahmed Jabarin. Later on, during clashes between the same policemen and a group of rioters standing on higher ground, the police fatally shot Mohammed Jabarin. The following morning, during clashes between police and stone-throwing youths at the entrance to the city, Abu Jarad was shot to death.

Two of the witnesses, Muhammed Dahud and Mahmid Tawfik, told the committee that the police had opened fire without cause. 'We were taken by surprise,' said Dahud. 'The police were far away and didn't give us any warning.' He said he and his friends had stopped to drink water and were not throwing stones. The police fired from a distance of 60 meters.

The shooting came from the house of Agbariya Kassem, who told the commission that some 15-20 policemen suddenly turned up and occupied the house without warning. Some of them took up positions in the courtyard outside, while others occupied the second floor and the roof.

After Ahmed Jabarin was killed, youths began throwing stones at Kassem's house. The violence continued for almost four hours. During the clashes, Mohammed Jabarin was killed.

Or asked Kassem about the attack on the police. 'We have a great deal of evidence that the stone throwing was massive and that the rioters came so close to the house as to threaten the lives of the police,' he said. 'Is this true?' Kassem confirmed that the demonstrators had approached the house but maintained that the lives of the policemen were not in danger.

He also singled out one of the policemen as being especially aggressive. 'He kept rushing towards the hill, getting down on his knee and aiming his rifle,' said Kassem. 'He was an Ethiopian policeman. I overheard one of the policemen say not to shoot randomly. 'Let the demonstrators approach, get tired and eat their hearts out,' he said. 'Then shoot.''

The unnamed Ethiopian policeman came up again in the testimony of Yousef Jabarin, the brother of Mohammed. Yousef told the committee that his brother and the Ethiopian started cursing each other. Yousef was hiding behind a table during the altercation. A few minutes later, he tried to crawl away and was allegedly shot after he got up and started running away. Yousef Jabarin told the commission he did not know who shot his brother.

The two deputy mayors of Umm el-Fahm who testified, Agbariya and Mustafa Mahmoud, blamed the police for rejecting their pleas to go away and let the municipality handle the unrest. Agbariya said that after Abu Jarad was killed, the police agreed to keep away from Umm el-Fahm and within a day the city was cleaned up and the highway reopened.

Likud MK Gideon Ezra attended the hearing and blasted the outgoing government for agreeing to appoint a judicial commission in the first place.

'We must defend our policemen and soldiers,' he said, charging that Labor had agreed to the commission to win Arab votes. 'We cannot desert the police. We didn't expect the Arabs to act this way and we weren't ready. There were few policemen available and the Arabs wanted to kill them. The Israeli people must understand this.'

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