Israeli police are refusing to release footage that shows Maram Ismail, a 23-year- old Palestinian mother, and her 16-year-old brother Ibrahim Taha being killed on Wednesday, at the Qalandia checkpoint outside Jerusalem. The police are claiming that Ismail and Taha were trying to stab Israelis.

This has increased suspicions that the footage shows that the young mother and her brother did not intend to stab Israeli soldiers with knives, and that their murder was a result of a hasty decision or was an intentional murder.

The young woman’s relatives confirmed that she was not involved in any political activity and that there was no way that she could have carried out a suicide bombing. However, Israeli police denied this and claim that Maram and her brother refused to obey orders to stop, and that Maram had a knife with her which alerted police, and that she and her brother were killed thereafter.

In contrast, Palestinian eyewitnesses gave a different account and said that “Maram and her brother did not pose a threat, were at a far distance from the border guards and did not understand what the police said to them in Hebrew.”

The police in this case are required to release footage of everything that takes place at that checkpoint in detail, as it is the largest border crossing between the Palestinian Authority and Israel, and tens of thousands of people cross it daily to travel between Jerusalem and Ramallah. Jerusalem police claimed that they cannot release the footage showing the incident because it is considered to be evidence for the investigation.