Evidence Emerges of Israeli “Shoot To Cripple” Policy In the Occupied West Bank
▻http://www.alternet.org/world/evidence-emerges-israeli-shoot-cripple-policy-occupied-west-bank
Most disturbing about the killing was how familiar scenes like it had become. According to Abukhalil, the Israeli army has exhibited a clear pattern of either shooting to kill or shooting to cripple over the past six months. Rather than disperse protests with traditional means like teargas and rubber coated metal bullets, the army has begun firing at protesters’ knees, femurs, or aiming for their vital organs.
Like the army’s old policy of breaking the arms of young stone throwers to deter protests during the First Intifada, the new tactic suggests an attempt to winnow out the ranks of demonstrators by shattering their legs. By eroding the front line of protests through brute force, Israel’s military is apparently trying to undermine the capacity of Palestinian society to mount an effective new Intifada.
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“Every Friday we’d have ten to twenty guys coming in [to the hospital] all injured around the knees,” he explained. He added that many of the wounded demonstrators claimed to have heard the Israeli commander in Jalazone, “Hilal,” order his soldiers to cripple as many protesters as they could.
