As the saying goes, “the handicapped have their abilities and their disability does not negate their potential.” This saying played itself out as the Israeli “special” forces invaded the center of the West Bank city of Qalqilia.
As the saying goes, “the handicapped have their abilities and their disability does not negate their potential.” This saying played itself out as the Israeli “special” forces invaded the center of the West Bank city of Qalqilia.
Photographer Mohammad Ethbi told the PNN Tuesday that he was attacked by Israeli soldiers and saved by a handicapped man.
“I own a photography studio in the center of the city. When the Israeli soldiers crossed the main road and headed in the direction of the Al Nezal neighborhood, I quickly followed with my camera that I use for my journalistic work.
As I approached a civilian car, a Mercedes, and I didn’t know what was in it, an Israeli soldier told me not to take any photos. I told him that I am a journalist working for the A.P. [Associated Press]. When I continued to take pictures, he attacked me and attempted to take my camera by force”.
Ethbi continued, “At that moment a mentally handicapped man, Abdul-Raziq Sa’adi, ran at the soldier waving his hands intensely, asking the soldier not to take my camera away and insisting that I continue my work.
The soldier tried to convince the handicapped man that he should step away, telling him that he is a ‘good and a respectable man,’ therefore he must leave.”
As the soldier was distracted while talking to the handicapped man, the photographer moved away quickly, and was able to save his camera, his video cassette and photographs which captured the images of the Israeli under-cover forces.
Photographer Mohammad Ethbi continued, “As the Israeli officer was talking to Sa’adi, another handicapped man with Down Syndrome approached. The Israeli soldiers told him to leave, but he refused and began helping Sa’adi. Both of them overwhelmed the soldiers and the officer.
“These moments were dear to me because I was the one who was targeted by the soldiers who were trying to take my camera and cassette. And this is what happened with my colleagues Bashar Nazal and Mahmoud Shounti, but their film was confiscated by the soldiers”
During the Al Aqsa Intifada, Israeli forces repeatedly attacked handicapped people in the city of Qalqilia and its surrounding villages and fired at them with live rounds.
A 50-year old handicapped man, Hatam Oudi, is still suffering from injuries sustained in an attack during the Intifada.
Raed Sasa is suffering the same fate after Israeli soldiers shot him in his stomach. Israeli forces killed another handicapped man from ‘Azoun village near Qalqilia; the man was killed near the Wall, south of Qalqilia.
