‘I was almost paralyzed’
An elderly Palestinian man told Ruptly (a news outlet) what it was like to be detained in a choke hold by an Israeli soldier, saying he was nearly paralyzed by the brute force used. His detention triggered media outrage across the Arab world.
Khairy Hanoun, a 65-year-old resident of Tulkarm, a Palestinian town of roughly 62,000 people, went out to support a Palestinian demonstration in the Israeli-occupied West Bank territory several days ago. Unarmed and wearing traditional Arabic fatigues, he showed up at the rally holding a Palestinian flag.
Israeli occupation forces brutally assault an elderly Palestinian man, arresting him and pressing down with their knee on his neck. He was protesting against the seizure of Palestinian lands in the villages of Al-Ras, Tulkarm in the West Bank, Palestine. pic.twitter.com/lcOe9kd21S
— Richard Medhurst (@richimedhurst) September 1, 2020
Once there, he spotted children watching the protest, overseen by a group of armed Israeli troops. As the minors were behaving peacefully, Hanoun tried to persuade the soldiers to leave. “I tried to intervene to keep harm away from the children. I spoke with the officer, telling him, ‘These are children – you cannot point your weapon at them,’” he told Ruptly on Friday.
Pushed aside by a soldier, the elderly man tried to grab the strap of his weapon, in order, he said, “to change the direction of the target.” What happened afterward was captured on film by the numerous international reporters present, and became hotly debated news in the Middle East and beyond.
The Israeli soldier wrestled Hanoun to the ground and, after a short scuffle, knelt on his neck and back. His comrades, meanwhile, wielded their guns, arguably to make sure no one stepped in to help Hanoun.
“What surprised me was that he put his foot on my neck,” Hanoun recalled, adding that he hadn’t been resisting and didn’t have any weapons on him. He said he was “almost paralyzed” in the incident, which drew comparisons with the notorious arrest of the African American George Floyd, whose death in similar situation sparked massive rallies in the US and elsewhere against police brutality and racism.
“What came to my mind during that moment was the American policeman who killed the black citizen in the United States”.