It’s an appalling video that leaves no room for doubt: This was an execution. The victim was a helpless, older woman who wanted to end her life. The soldiers who executed her were either craven cowards of the sort who take fright at the sight of a sick, elderly woman with a knife, or they were cruel and inhuman and had no sense of judgment. One of them did shout to the others “Stop!” – but it was too late. Soldiers of the Nahal Brigade apparently know only one surefire way stop a mentally unstable woman, who could be their grandmother. A woman holding a kitchen knife in her limp hand – her husband later confirmed that it had been taken from their home – who did not endanger them for a second. And that way is: Shoot to kill.
They roared at her and then backed away as if she were a bold, young terrorist and not a heavyset woman who barely moved forward. The Israel Defense Forces thought these soldiers had acted properly, perhaps even in an outstanding way. The army doesn’t always release video footage of incidents like this one, but this time it made the video of the execution available – proof, ostensibly, that the troops had acted correctly. But this clip actually leaves no room for doubt: This was the execution of a helpless, 60-year-old woman. There is no other way to describe what happened this past Sunday morning at the Gush Etzion junction in the West Bank, near Bethlehem.
The incident was barely reported in most of the Israeli media. And in the few items covering the story, the woman was called a “terrorist,” the incident was called a case of “terror,” and some even referred to “those who dispatched the terrorist” on her ostensible mission.
"There's no room for doubt: This was the execution of a helpless 60-year-old Palestinian woman," Gideon Levy and Alex Levac (ICH)..
