I reported last week on the death of three Palestinians in Nablus at the hands of the IDF.
B’Tselem has released a report that questions the legality of the deaths:
In the pre-dawn hours of 26 December 2009, soldiers shot to death Ghassan Abu Sharakh, Nader a-Sarkaji, and ”˜Anan Subuh, while each of them was at home in the Old City of Nablus. The first two were with their families at the time they were shot. State officials, among them the IDF Spokesperson, stated that the three had been involved in the shooting attack that killed Rabbi Meir Chai on 24 December 2009. They further stated that the soldiers went to the houses to arrest them, but the three refused to surrender, and the soldiers shot them when they felt their lives were in danger.
B’Tselem’s investigation of the event, which included interviews with nine relatives of the men who were killed and examination of the findings at the scene and of medical reports, revealed a different version. The investigation raises a grave suspicion that the soldiers acted unlawfully and, at least in the cases of Ghassan Abu Sharakh and Nader a-Sarkaji, made no attempt to arrest them before shooting them to death.