Source: Agencies, 13-8-2007
JERUSALEM (AL-QUDS) - Police released video footage Sunday showing a firefight between a Palestinian man and an "Israeli" Zionist security guard in the Old City of occupied east Jerusalem (al-Quds), which left the Palestinian dead.
The footage from Friday`s incident, which came from several surveillance cameras, showed 29-year-old "Israeli" Arab (1948-Palestinian) Ahmed Khatib seizing the gun of one two guards from a Zionist association for ultra-nationalist Jews and opening fire twice.
One of the guards is hit in the shoulder and the gunman flees, being pursued by the other guard.
A second video shows the two men engaged in a gunfight in a lane in which 10 passersby are wounded, until Khatib is hit and lies slumped in the street, dead.
According to police, the images are proof that the security guard had acted in self-defence in killing Khatib.
Arab "Israeli" MP Ahmed Tibi had implied that the guard might have killed Khatib after the shooter was already down and posed no threat.
Friday`s shooting was the latest violent incident involving Zionists and Palestinians inside the Arab sector of occupied east Jerusalem.
Jerusalem (al-Quds) police Chief Aaron Franco had said on Friday the Palestinian shot and wounded the guard from the ultra-Orthodox Ateret Cohanim group, whose colleague gave chase and eventually killed him.
Shot while he was down?
Based on earlier statements by Arab MK Ahmad Tibi, witnesses in the area did not necessarily deny Khatib`s involvement in the shooting, but claimed that he was killed in an execution-style shooting, once he had already fallen wounded to the ground.
The video released by police on Sunday ends seconds after the shooter fell to the ground, thus not providing evidence of whether Tibi`s allegations have any basis. But police have refuted the claim, saying that "according to witnesses and an unreleased video, this did not happen."
A statement by the Abu Kabir medical center strengthen`s the police`s position. According to them, the shooter`s body had several bullet wounds and autopsy results indicated that he had not been shot while on the ground.
Such claims by police or pathologists did not stop many at the service from proclaiming the shooter`s martyrdom. His father said Ahmad Khatib would be added to the list of shahids from the town, which includes a resident who was killed during the riots of October 2000.
The head of the Islamic Movement`s northern branch Sheikh Raad Salah - soon to be indicted for incitement against the State - also declared the shooter to be a shahid when speaking at the funeral.
"If the ‘Israeli' establishment thought to send a message of fear with this murder, we will stomp on this murder. We need to remember that there were many invaders (in this land) and they all disappeared," he added.
Some 1,000 people arrived in the Arab-"Israeli" village of Kfar Manda, Khatib`s hometown, to attend the memorial service. Many of them waved Islamic Movement flags and cried out against the "Israeli" establishment. Others carried signs reading "Try the murderers" and "We won`t forgive and won`t forget."
Victim's father
Surveillance tapes showing Ahmad Khatib grabbing a weapon from a security guard and firing it repeatedly during a pursuit in Jerusalem`s Arab sector last Friday were doctored by the police, said father Mahmoud Khatib during a Sunday memorial service for his son.
Ahmad Khatib, according to videotapes, seized a gun from a guard of the Ateret Kohanim yeshiva and fired it repeatedly before being shot down by the security guard chasing him. But many of the shooter`s friends and family have asserted his innocence, some saying that the incident was a complete fabrication.
According to Mahmoud Khatib, it is significant that the incident took place next to the Ateret Kohanim yeshiva which he said is housed by "extreme people who try to take over Muslim Jerusalem (al-Quds) by buying houses."
The shooter`s father claimed that the investigation into the incident was not conducted in a proper and unbiased manner, and demanded a new investigation headed by a neutral source. "I am only looking for justice," he said.
"Today there`s no problem to use graphics and edit tapes however you want," said Mahmoud Khatib in his memorial speech. "Everything can be staged. I have witnesses who claim that something else went down and I will bring them out at the right time."
He said that he and his other sons are scheduled to be questioned by police Monday, as part of an ongoing investigation into the incident.
History
East Jerusalem (al-Quds) contains sites holy to Christians, Jews and Muslims.
"Israel" captured it from Jordan in the 1967 Arab-"Israeli" war and later annexed it as part of its "eternal and indivisible" capital of the Jewish (Zionist) state.
"Israel's" claims are not recognised by the international community, and Palestinians consider the eastern half of the city, where 200,000 Palestinians live, the eventual capital of their own promised state.
Ateret Cohanim, founded in 1978, is one of several ultra-nationalist organisations that have bought land and homes from Palestinians through various means in order to place Zionist Jews in the Arab neighbourhoods of Jerusalem (al-Quds), including the Arab sector.