The video filmed at night, which lasts around ten seconds, shows two people from behind moving forward while looking cautiously to their right. After a few steps, the first person collapses as three shots ring out.
Viewed several million times since it was put online on Thursday October 19, the video (warning, violent images) was massively shared by pro-Palestinian accounts, accusing the Israeli army of having killed a 15-year-old child while he was unarmed.
According to these accounts, the person targeted by the shots was Taha Mahameed, a teenager aged 15 or 16 (depending on the version) residing in a refugee camp in the West Bank.
According to the Palestinian branch of Defense for Children International, a children’s rights NGO, the 15-year-old was “shot and killed by Israeli forces around 3:40 a.m. on October 19.”
In the article, published Thursday, the NGO details: “Israeli special forces entered Nour Shams about 20 minutes earlier and Taha stood in front of his house in the Al-Malash neighborhood, which overlooks the entrance to the camp, to observe. Israeli forces fired three shots at Taha, hitting him twice, once in the head and once in the eye. When Taha’s father approached him to let him in, Israeli forces shot his father in the abdomen. »
Several videos filmed the scene
One of the first traces of the video that 20 minutes was able to identify was shared on a broadcast channel on Telegram sharing information about the Nur Shams camp. The video was first posted at 3:40 a.m. (local time), accompanied by the caption “Injury of a young man” (in Arabic). A second video was posted a few moments later, at 4:04 a.m., showing a third person, who was lying next to the person who had been hit by the shots, getting up and staggering away. A third video filmed from the same point of view will be published at 4:48 a.m., showing rescuers arriving with an ambulance placing the body on a stretcher. The message then states: “The ambulance is transporting the injured young man, Taha”. The vehicle bears the PRCS inscription
This acronym is that of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, a branch of the Red Cross, which also documented relief interventions in the refugee camp on Thursday. In a publication posted in the morning, the organization notably reported the evacuation of “a young martyr of 16 years old”. A video posted a few hours later shows an ambulance in the refugee camp, similar to the one appearing in the video.
Two other videos were later posted on the same channel, showing a body on a stretcher in the premises of a hospital pushed by men in the colors of the Palestinian Red Crescent. One of the videos is accompanied by the caption: “Taha arrived at the hospital”.
20 minutes was able to find the young man’s Facebook profile, whose photos and public information correspond to those broadcast on social networks and the various media that have reported on the subject. The Al Nahda Cultural Institute, where the young man studied according to his Facebook account, also posted a message in his memory on Thursday, accompanied by several photos.
The context of an Israeli army raid
As reported by several Arabic-speaking and Israeli media, the Nour Shams camp was the subject of a raid by the Israeli army on Thursday. Reporting the comments of the Palestinian Ministry of Health, the media Al Jazeera explains in particular: “Israeli forces carried out a large-scale raid on the Nur Shams refugee camp in Tulkarem on Thursday, killing at least seven Palestinians and causing heavy destruction. . » The Palestinian News Agency WAFA stated this Friday, October 20 that the death toll rose to 13, “including 6 children”.
As reported France 24, the IDF army indicated that it had lost one man and that others were injured by explosive devices, in the intervention which aimed to “search for terrorist suspects” in the Nour Shams camp. The Israeli army also used a drone “to target these terrorist suspects”. Information also reported by the Israeli media Times of Israel.