The Killing of Bassem Abu Rahma

Overview

On 17 April 2009, near the village of Bil’in, Bassem Abu Rahma was shot and killed by a tear-gas canister fired across the fence of the barrier wall that surrounds the West Bank. Abu Rahma was attending a protest, and was unarmed. The protest occurred at a location that had been declared a ‘closed military zone’ by Israeli authorities four years earlier. Since then, non-violent activists were routinely arrested and imprisoned in the area. In the context of such encounters, official instructions allow soldiers to use only ‘non-lethal means’, such as tear gas and rubber-coated bullets, unless their lives are in danger. But while tear gas is considered a ‘non-lethal’ munition, when the aluminum gas canister hits a human body directly, the impact can be fatal. Soldiers are only supposed to shoot these munitions upward, at a trajectory of 60 degrees, above a crowd.