I saw the soldiers walking between the houses. At some point, they knocked on my sister Umm Nidal’s door. Her son Nidal, 19, and my brother Younis, 22, opened the door. The soldiers demanded that they take off their shirts and turn around, and then told them to evacuate a wounded man from the house next door. The wounded man was ‘Izzat Abu Muhsen. I saw Yunes and Nidal lift ‘Izzat and carry him about a hundred meters in the direction of the soldiers. At that moment, I saw the soldiers tie Yunes’ hands behind his back and order him to sit 200 meters away. Then they talked to Nidal.
After about 15 minutes, Nidal came to my house and pounded on the door. My one-year-old baby got a fright and started to cry. I opened the door and asked why he was banging like that, and he told me: "The soldiers demanded that I knock on the doors hard, otherwise they would shoot me."
I left the house with my wife, my baby daughter and my brother Ibrahim, 32. One of the soldiers tied my hands behind my back with a white cord. Then he searched my brother Ibrahim, tied his hands behind his back and ordered us to sit down where the other people were sitting. I heard the soldiers order Nidal to go with them towards Faiq Abu Muhsen’s driving school, which is a hundred meters or so from the houses and about 200 meters from where they had us sit.
Later I learned that the military was looking for “wanted” people who were in Muhammad Abu Muhsen’s house, which is next to Nidal’s house. The homeowner wasn’t home at the time and the soldiers took his wife, Sanaa, and interrogated her for about half an hour. Then they ordered her to sit next to us. She told us that the soldiers had dressed Nidal in something military and given him a black dog. She said Nidal had walked towards the houses that are about 100 meters away and she had not seen him since. One of the children who was with us, Muhammad, 14, also said he’d seen Nidal walking towards the house wearing something military and leading a black dog.
I heard gunfire and saw the soldiers firing at the houses. Then I heard loud explosions inside the house. I think the soldiers fired missiles at the house. I heard four explosions and then I saw thick smoke rising from the house. After the explosions, the soldiers fired intensively at Muhammad’s house and then they broke into his neighbor’s house, Ibrahim Sa’ud. I saw the soldiers go inside and shoot. Then two bulldozers drove up. One blocked the road and the other demolished Muhammad’s house.
After 20 minutes or so, I saw four soldiers carrying someone on a stretcher. When the soldiers arrived at the school, they threw him off the stretcher like you throw trash. We didn’t recognize the man because we were 200 meters from the soldiers. He was wearing a gray shirt and black pants. We didn’t think much of it because we thought it was one of the wanted men the army had been looking for. At about 5:30 P.M., the soldiers started up the vehicles, removed the bulldozers and collected all their equipment. There were more than 60 soldiers there, more than 10 jeeps and two bulldozers. Two tanks were standing two kilometers from the scene of the incident. We went towards the houses to see what had happened, and we saw that the houses the soldiers had been in were badly damaged. All the doors and windows were broken and furniture was damaged by bullets.
Under the rubble we saw a man’s head and part of his chest. Some people said it was the body of Nasser Jarar, a resident of Jenin who had been staying with Muhammad. We didn’t find any weapons or other bodies there. The people started clearing away the rubble and we went to look for Nidal. We thought the soldiers had locked him in one of the driving school trailers. When we didn’t find him, I called B’Tselem and told Nimrod, my manager, what had happened. Nimrod told me that Nidal had been killed in the incident.
In Tubas on 14 August 2002
The testimony of ‘Ali Daraghmeh, a field researcher for B’Tselem who witnessed the incident
The testimony was written by Daraghmeh on 15 August 2002
Yesterday, at 1:00 P.M., I was at home in the eastern neighborhood of Tubas. From the house I saw a white Volkswagen minibus enter the neighborhood from the north. About ten soldiers got out and immediately fired into the air. They entered Mahmoud Abu Muhsen’s house. I heard the shouts of the soldiers and the occupants. When I looked out the window facing north-east, I saw ten Israeli military jeeps, two of them Border Police jeeps.
He went outside before us, and that was the last time I saw him. The soldiers led us to an area near the cemetery. We stayed there for four-five hours and the whole time we heard shooting, soldiers shouting and the noise of bulldozers. It was tough and we were very scared.
After the soldiers left, we found out that there was a martyr, Nasser Jarar, who had been hiding in a house in the neighborhood. I searched for my son, crying, and asked the men if they’d seen him. They told me that the soldiers had taken him with them. Everyone reassured me that he would be back soon. I calmed down a bit. My little boys were scared and hungry, so I had to calm down, go home and take care of them.
The house was in very bad shape. The soldiers had destroyed everything. Even the clothes inside the closets were torn, and the soldiers had also torn the clothes I had laid out for the girls to wear to school. But I wish the house had been ruined a few more times and Nidal was still alive.
The next day, at midday, Nidal’s body was returned, with no movement, no life and no spirit. There was dirt covering his face, hair and clothes. They killed him and set him aside until they finished what they were doing, and only then did they take him away. Later, I learned from residents that they had chosen Nidal out of everyone to serve as a human shield, going ahead of the troops. Once he got to the house, he was shot from within it, because they thought he was a soldier. He was shot in the head.
That’s how my suffering began. My eldest son, who was so dear to me, was martyred. He was my prince and now he’s gone. I always dreamed of how he would grow up. But he was killed, without doing anything to anyone, just because a soldier with protective equipment wanted to keep himself safe and sacrifice my son, who was unarmed and didn’t even know who was in the house.
The sorrow and the grief have been with us ever since. Nidal died 16 years ago and I still feel as if it happened yesterday. His death destroyed every good part in me. Six years ago, I got heart disease, maybe because of all this grief and pain. I had surgery and had four stents implanted in my heart.
I hate the holidays. Every time, a few days before the holiday, I walk around with a heavy heart because I remember Nidal and the visits of my brothers and Nidal’s uncles paid us back then. I imagine what would have happened if he were still alive. He would probably have been married, and my grandchildren would be playing around us, with the whole family coming to visit. On the holidays, the men usually visit the female relatives. My husband goes alone to visit our daughters. If Nidal were alive, he would probably go with him and help him. We have no one to rely on in this life.
Muna Abu Muhsen, Nidal’s mother, 57 and a mother of ten, spoke with B’Tselem field researcher Salma a-Deb’i this year, describing the incident and life since losing her son:
My eldest son Nidal fell as a martyr on 14 August 2002, when he was 19. It was a traumatic, painful event that affected everyone. The soldiers came into our neighborhood and called everyone out of the houses. We were safe in our house until the soldiers took us out of it. I went out with my boys, most of whom were little. Nidal, the eldest, was 19, but Muhammad, who is now 21, was only five years old. I remember the last thing my eldest son said to me: “Mother, go outside with my sisters.”
1. An examination of the matter found that during an IDF operation to capture a terrorist on 14 August 2002 in the village of Tubas, the forces employed the assistance of Nidal Abu Muhsen. Mr. Abu Muhsen, who lived near the house where the terrorist was hiding, was asked to go between the houses in the compound where the terrorist was staying and call all the inhabitants to come out. The goal was to prevent, to the extent possible, harm to innocents.
2. The examination found that the commanders of the forces on the ground did not estimate that employing the assistance of Mr. Abu Muhsen would place his life in danger.
3. Unfortunately, during the incident, several shots were fired at Mr. Abu Muhsen, apparently by the terrorist, killing him.
4. The death of Nidal Abu Muhsen is a tragic and unfortunate event. However, given all the circumstances, it was decided that no further measures should be taken concerning the complaint.
Letter to B’Tselem dated 9 July 2003 from Col. Einat Ron, Chief Military Prosecutor