Israel Begins Investigation into Death of 13 Israeli ArabsThe State Commission of Inquiry of Israel on Monday began investigation into the death of 13 Israeli Arab citizens last October in clashes with Israeli police and security forces.The commission, headed by Supreme Court Justice Theodor Orr, begins its inquiry in the Supreme Court of Justice here and is scheduled to hold hearings several times a week to hear the many witnesses who are expected to testify. The other members of the commission are Judge Jarakh Sahal, president of the Nazareth District Court and Shimon Shamir, Israel's former ambassador to Egypt and Jordan. Three residents of the Arab village of Jatt, northern Israel, and four policemen were first up on Monday to give testimony regarding the death of a 21-year-old resident of the village on October 2. Eyewitness said that the young man was killed with a hit in the eye by a rubber-coated metal bullet fired at close range. Relatives of the Israeli Arabs who were killed during the October clashes protested inside the court building, asking why the Arabs are not allowed to speak Arab and the hearing was conducted through translations. The morning hearing was interrupted for a while when a family member of the Arabs killed in the clashes tried to attack a policeman who took part in the shooting. Some of the family members of the killed have demanded that the bodies be exhumed for autopsies, to make proof that the police violated open-fire orders. Sheikh Abdullah Nimr Darwish, founder of the Islamic Movement in Israel, told Israel Radio that he did not have much faith in the commission. "I don't expect much (from the inquiry)," he said. "I hope I'm wrong." Knesset (parliament) member Ahmed Tibi of the Arab Movement for Renewal said Monday that "it is very important that people come and testify so that the truth comes out." Tibi said that he hoped the inquiry would ultimately expose those whom he said were responsible for the death of the 13. "There are three levels -- those who gave the orders, those who carried them out and those who have ministerial responsibility," he said. The bloody conflict between Israelis troops and Palestinian protestors, triggered by Israeli right-wing Likud party leader Ariel Sharon's provocative visit to an Islamic holy site last September, spread to Israel one month later. As a result, thousands of Israeli Arabs took to the streets in northern Israel and clashed with Israeli police and other security forces, which claimed the lives of 13 Israeli Arabs in the whole month of last October. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which in addition have killed more than 300 Palestinians and dozens Israelis, is still going on and even intensified, especially after hardliner Ariel Sharon's election as the new prime minister of the Jewish state on February 6 |
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