The Killing of Bassem Abu Rahma

<p>On 17 April 2009, near the village of Bil’in, Bassem Abu Rahma was shot and killed by a tear-gas canister fired across the fence of the barrier wall that surrounds the West Bank. Abu Rahma was attending a protest, and was unarmed.</p> <p>The protest occurred at a location that had been declared a ‘closed military zone’ by Israeli authorities four years earlier. Since then, non-violent activists were routinely arrested and imprisoned in the area.</p> <p>In the context of such encounters, official instructions allow soldiers to use only ‘non-lethal means’, such as tear gas and rubber-coated bullets, unless their lives are in danger. But while tear gas is considered a ‘non-lethal’ munition, when the aluminum gas canister hits a human body directly, the impact can be fatal. Soldiers are only supposed to shoot these munitions upward, at a trajectory of 60 degrees, above a crowd.</p> <p>Following Abu Rahma’s death, the military denied responsibility, claiming that soldiers did not fire the canister directly at the victim. Authorities suggested he might have been struck as a result of an unfortunate deflection, and closed the investigation.</p> <p>However, the killing was recorded by three cameras, from different angles. Forensic Architecture (FA) was commissioned to reconstruct the event by the Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem, and human rights lawyer Michael Sfard, acting for Abu Rahma’s parents.</p> <p>One of the three people filming that day was David Reeb, an Israeli artist and activist who was standing next to Abu Rahma when he was shot. Reeb’s footage showed a group of Israeli soldiers on the opposite side of the separation barrier. A few seconds later in his footage, a single still frame captured a faint and blurry streak: the projectile moving horizontally in mid-flight. Three frames later, the canister strikes Abu Rahma, who is heard calling out in pain.</p> <p>We located the videos and the participants in a 3D model and demonstrated that the lethal strike was fired with the intention to kill or maim.</p>