West Bank civilian dies in Israeli army raid in Hebron

**tantalus** · 08 Jan 11,, 11:50

BBC News - West Bank civilian dies in Israeli army raid in Hebron

Israeli troops have shot dead a 67-year-old Palestinian man by mistake in an operation to arrest members of the Islamist militant organisation, Hamas.

The pre-dawn raid happened in Hebron, in the West Bank, a day after six supporters of Hamas had been released from jail by the Palestinian Authority.

The man who died was a neighbour of one of the Hamas men.

Israel needs to respond heavily to this imo. It seems they just shot him unarmed in his bed, even if he was a militant they could have just arrested him, never mind that it was mistaken identity, sad, this damned conflict....

Israel are losing the PR war, this article and pic had a major effect on me (see link), but still israeli authorities have to take more responsibility, despite the appalling situation.

**bigross86** · 08 Jan 11,, 15:00

I don't know all the details, so I can't condone this or condemn this in one way or the other, aside from it looking bad on the face of things.

I will say from personal experience that there could be certain mitigating factors: There are no addresses or even a proper street system, so it's completely plausible that they showed up at a neighbor's house by mistake. Another option is that there were walls torn down or other building modifications done which would lead to the confusion.

As to the shooting itself, I know that during an arrest your senses are at the most alert, and more than once we've found folks sleeping with pistols and knives under their pillows. The ROE are very specific: Means to kill and intent = shoot towards center body mass to kill. This guy may have tried to do the wrong thing, or even did something trivial like turning on the light and one of the soldiers twitched.

Like I said, without more details, there's nothing else I can really give you.