An internal Israeli police report admitted that Israeli border guards deliberately provoke conflict with Palestinian residents of occupied East Jerusalem. Sometimes their motives are political and seek retaliation and, in other cases, they seek entertainment. A lawyer from the Association for Civil Rights Anne Sachio commented by saying that there is a noticeable phenomenon of harassing people with the aim of repression and revenge, and its victims are mostly innocents.

The internal police report mentioned an example of this “conflict” – an incident that took place in the town of Issawiya that led to confrontations on the 6th of January between young Palestinians and a number of border guards that entered the town. During the confrontations, sponge tipped bullets were used against a boy of 12 named Ahmad Abu Hummus. His head was seriously wounded and he spent three weeks in hospital during which he received artificial respiration.

As a result of this incident, Abu Hummus suffers from a serious brain injury and does not recognise members of his family. His family made a complaint to the Police Internal Investigations Department through a Jewish lawyer. Almost two months ago, the Police Internal Investigations Department (Machash) announced that it has decided to close the inquiry because no evidence confirming that a crime had been committed had been found.

The lawyer tried to appeal against the decision, but Machash handed him an almost empty file. The complete file that the lawyer previously submitted included ten reports detailing the actions of the police forces involved in the accident and almost all of them concluded that the incident began as a result of “dissentious actions” or “conflict initiated by the police”.