The case against the police officers who were suspected of involvement in the deaths of the Arab student who got into a shootout has been closed

DIP decided to close the case after it was found that the shooting from which Ahmad Hijazi was wounded in Tamra about a year ago was not carried out by the police.

In Arab society, they were furious: "DIP's conduct leads to the continued phenomenon of the execution of Arab citizens by the police."

Hijazi's brother: "In our sector, the hand of the police is light on the trigger"

Yoav Itiel

20/02/2022

Sunday, 20 February 2022, 19:58 Updated: 21:01

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Brother of the dead in Tamra: "We live in a sector under fire" (Photo: Shlomi Gabay)

DIP decided today (Sunday) to close the investigation file against the police officers suspected of involvement in the death of Ahmad Hijazi, who was killed by gunfire, after getting into a shootout between police and masked men in Tamra about a year ago. The North, for the purpose of drawing lessons.

The incident began with an ambush carried out by the police in the city of Tamra in the Galilee, where the police carried out an ambush near a residence, in order to locate a firing squad that operated there.

Three masked men arrived at the scene and started firing at the police, despite the identification of the police, who responded with gunfire.

One of the masked men was hit by the gunfire and collapsed, and the other, who was armed with a gun, fled up the road.

The third masked man fled into an alley where student Ahmad Hijazi and doctor Mahmoud Aramush lived.

Shortly afterwards, fire was opened at the police officers from that direction, and in response one of the police officers fired at the source of the shooting.

At the sound of the gunfire, Hijazi and the doctor, Aramos, left their house and were hit by it.

Hijj's death was later determined

More on Walla!

The first day of the internship ended in death: step by step in the exchange of fire in Tamra

To the full article

The scene of the fire exchange in Tamra, about a year ago (Photo: Israel Police Spokeswoman)

Following the incident, a DIP investigation was opened, in which the police officers involved in the warning were questioned. The

investigation

further revealed that the police officers, as well as the civilians who lived there, were in tangible and immediate danger to life. In the conditions of self-defense and was required in the circumstances of the case. "

Funeral funeral following Hijazi's death, about a year ago (Photo: Official website, Eli Ashkenazi)

"They called us to a meeting, spoke respectfully, told us that unfortunately the incident had taken place and told us what we had known for a year," he told Walla!

The director of the family supermarket, Jaber Hijazi, Ahmad's brother, "said that the policemen who were in the arena had to use weapons. The big question is why the police have to ambush people and chase them between houses in a crowded neighborhood - this is an unanswered question."

"They said, 'We will learn, we will draw conclusions and we will learn lessons,'" he continued.

"They have and we do not have and no one has an answer to the question of who killed Ahmed. The police say it is likely that the bad guys with the illegal weapons are the ones who killed Ahmed but they did not give a definitive answer because there were no bullets in Ahmed's body."

"We as a family say the responsibility is on the police. I asked the police why 'did you come to this enforcement activity?'

"And they said they had intelligence that armed people were coming to blackmail a man. I asked them why there were no snipers on the rooftops. Why two policemen on three gunmen. Maybe they would kill a policeman in charge of our city security. To all the big questions they answered it was an operational decision."

The shooting scene in Tamra, last year (Photo: Shlomi Gabay)

"In our sector, the hand of the police is light on the trigger," Hijazi accused.

"I always say: I do not come to judge who is right or who is to blame. I say this to the media as I said it today to DIP, and I say this to everyone personally: when in the Arab sector there are illegal weapons and there are people who make money from it, On a black day, this weapon will be turned over and pointed at the other side as well, towards the Jews.

Everyone sees it.

In recent months the police can no longer deal with them.

These bad people who roam the villages are shooting and they are growing to a size that the police can no longer enforce.

"We are normative people. People who want to live. Ahmed is a loss to the State of Israel. Ahmed is gone, his memory is blessed. But I want them to understand the message, the cancer of violence in the sector will not stay in the sector. They are growing and growing and starting to do harm to everyone."

Hijazi's funeral last year (Photo: Flash 90, Saria Diamant)

In response to the decision to close the case, the Mossawa Center for Arab Civil Rights in Israel blamed DIP for the killing of Arab civilians by police, claiming that DIP closed 46 such incidents.

"The omissions of the Department of Police Investigations in the Ministry of Justice continue the phenomenon of the execution of Arab citizens by police officers," the center said.

"The decision today is in addition to 46 previous decisions not to file indictments against police officers, who shot and killed Arab civilians in various circumstances. "Police

in another incident in which the boy Ahmad Qiyuan was shot dead at the entrance to the city of Umm al-Fahm in May last year, the investigation has not yet been concluded and no indictment has been filed against the policeman who shot him," the center added.

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