These dramatic photos show the moment an Israeli soldier pointed his rifle at a veiled Palestinian student at a border checkpoint.
The image was taken moments before Hadeel al-Hashlamon was shot and killed for allegedly trying to stab a serviceman, although eyewitness accounts seem to suggest she didn’t have a knife, the Daily Mail reports.
One eyewitness told the New York Times that she was trying to show soldiers the contents of her bag when she was shot.
Another, Fawaz Abu Aisheh, 34, told the Times that al-Hashlamon appeared to freeze as the events unfolded, remaining still even as a solider fired at her feet. He said: “She was like a nail, like she was in shock. I was shouting, ‘She doesn’t understand Hebrew! Even if she had a knife, she would have to leap over a barrier about a meter high to reach a soldier,” adding that there were up to seven soldiers with ‘heavy weapons’.
The Middle East Eye reported claims that she was then left in the street for thirty minutes before the soldiers allowed doctors to reach her.
Tensions between the Jewish and Muslim communities has increased recently in the run up to the key holidays of Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year), Yom Kippur, and the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha.
