Palestinian man describes being shot, crushed and secured in Israeli military jeep

When Mujahid Abadi went out to see if Israeli forces had entered his uncle’s area, he was shot in the arm and the ground. That was just the beginning of his ordeal. A few hours later, bruised and bloodied, he was found tied to the burning hood of an Israeli army jeep driving off the road on a highway.

The army initially said Abadi was a suspected terrorist, but later said he had not blackmailed Israeli forces and was caught in a crossfire with terrorists.

A video showing the 24-year-old man tied to a jeep circulated on social media, drawing condemnation across the world, including in the US. Many said this suggested Israeli squads were using him as a human shield – a charge Israel has often imposed on Hamas as it fights the surge in Gaza.

The army said it was investigating the incident and that it did not reflect its values. Palestinians, however, saw it as yet another act of brutality in Israel’s actions in the West Deposit, where violence has escalated since the conflict in Gaza following Hamas’ October 7 attack.

Abadi, speaking to The Associated Press from a medical institution bed on Tuesday, said he had left his uncle’s house in the volatile West Deposit city of Jenin on Saturday when he heard a commotion.

“I went outside to see what was happening and looked towards the neighbours’ houses, where I saw the army,” he said. “When I tried to return home, suddenly I was fired upon heavily and indiscriminately. My cousin who was with me was also killed.”

After he was shot in the arm, he hid behind his country car. Nearby he was again shot into the ground. Unable to travel, he called his father and told him he was about to die.

“I told him to try not to lose consciousness and to keep talking to me,” Raed Abadi said, standing over a mattress at his son’s medical institution. “Suddenly, the call got disconnected.”

Raid then saw fake news on social media that a Palestinian had been killed in the raid. “I collapsed, because I was 90% sure it was my son,” he said.

Abadi was not dead, but his struggle had just begun.

Israeli troops located him over the next few hours. He says they hit him on the head and face and in the areas where he was shot. Going closer, they dragged him by his legs, picked him up by his arms and legs and threw him on the hood of the army jeep.

“I screamed because of the heat,” he said. “Then, a soldier started abusing me and told me to shut up.”

The army noted that its forces had secured Abadi to the hood of the jeep to transport him to paramedics.

However, Nabal Farsakh, a spokesman for the Palestinian Purple Crescent rescue provider, said the army had closed the branch and prevented paramedics from caring for the wounded for at least a date.

In dashboard camera photos obtained by the AP, the jeep in which Abadi was escorted was seen driving at least two ambulances. Abadi mentioned that he was beaten with a jeep for almost a day before the squads untied him and discharged him to paramedics.

Matthew Miller, a spokesman for the Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, DC, said the video was “shocking”.

“Civilians should never be used as human shields. The IDF must swiftly investigate what happened and hold people accountable,” he said in relation to the Israeli military.

Israel has long accused Hamas of using civilians as human shields as militants operate from hidden residential neighborhoods in Gaza. It blames Hamas for most of the deaths in Gaza, where local state officials say more than 37,000 Palestinians have been killed since the beginning of the conflict, without specifying how many were civilians. About 1,200 Israelis, mostly civilians, were killed in the Hamas attack that sparked the conflict.

Within the West Deposit, Israeli forces have launched almost nightly raids, often resulting in shootouts with militants, and killing more than 550 Palestinians.

Rights groups say Israel has a long history of using Palestinians as human shields during military operations in both the territories, which it captured in a 1967 war and which the Palestinians want for their era. Are.

For many years, the army would automatically order Palestinian citizens to remove suspicious objects from the streets and inform the nation to return to their homes so the army could arrest them, a convention known as the “neighborhood process” in line with Israeli rights. “It is said. Task Force B’Tselem.

Israel’s Model Court in 2005 ordered the military to stop using Palestinians as human shields, but rights groups have continued to make an example over the years. In 2021, Israeli squads working in the West Deposit held an AP photographer against his will in a branch where Palestinians were throwing stones and soldiers were firing tear gas and rubber bullets.