Judah-ism is as Judah-ism does–IDF terrorists Shoot and Kill a Palestinian Shepherd Reading the Quran on His Land

Three soldiers pounce on a shepherd sitting outside his sheep pen, knock him over and then one of them shoots him to death at point-blank range.

Gideon Levy for Haaretz

The widow, Maryam, brings out a tattered plastic bag. She carefully pulls out its contents – everything she found in her dead husband’s pockets: a bag containing a few 5-shekel coins; a cheap, bloodstained watch that is still working; a cellphone with a bullet hole in it; a tattered wallet, and a Quran. The cover and the pages of the tiny volume are also bloodstained; there’s a bookmark still inside it. It is Ramadan, and Fakher Jaber had been reading from it before the soldiers showed up.

Jaber, 43, made a living as a shepherd. He and Maryam, 42, have four children: Yasmin, 23; Qusay, 21; Sleiwiana, 18, and Ibrahim, 13. They split their lives between two homes, according to the seasons: They spent broiling-hot summers in the family’s home in Aqraba, a town southeast of Nablus, and the rest of the year about 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) away, in their home, on their land, in the pastoral community of Khirbet al-Tawil at the edge of the Jordan Valley. That is where they were on Tuesday, March 19. Since the war in Gaza began six months ago, there have been increasing numbers of attacks by settlers in Khirbet al-Tawil, as has been the case throughout the West Bank.

A torn Palestinian flag, more like a rag, flies from a tall pole in the center of Aqraba. The Jabers’ apartment in town, which we visited this week, is on the second floor of a well-maintained building; their flock had been brought close to town, as well.

On the last day of his life, two and a half weeks ago, the shepherd and his wife got up at 5:30 A.M., as usual, and immediately went out together to milk the ewes. With their flock of 120 sheep, their work is never done. Maryam recalls now that they didn’t manage to eat breakfast before the daily Ramadan fast began. After about two hours they finished milking. Fakher took the sheep out to graze and she began to make cheese from the milk, which they sell in Nablus to help make their living.

Maryam then went on to prepare food for the iftar, the meal that breaks the Ramadan fast at sundown. Maqluba baked in their tabun was on the menu that day, and when Fakher returned with the sheep in the afternoon, he told Maryam that the aroma of that lamb-and-rice dish baking in the oven was his favorite smell.

After he returned the sheep to their pen, Fakher sat down near it, removed the Quran from his pocket and began to read from it. Maryam finished making dinner. She remembers that everything was normal and relatively peaceful that afternoon, in this beleaguered community, living under the constant threat of invasions by settlers.

Suddenly Maryam heard shouting. She rushed outside and saw three Israelis in uniform yelling at and wrestling with her husband. One of the men was masked, which led her to believe that they were settlers – of the type that frequently assault the shepherding communities, graze their livestock on the residents’ lands and water their flocks from their wells.

But it isn’t only the settlers who invade and destroy lives in these parts: The Israel Defense Forces and Civil Administration officials also harass Palestinians frequently, for building on their own land without a permit – which they have no chance of obtaining, of course.

The three men assaulting Fakher were soldiers.

When we arrive at Khirbet al-Tawil after leaving the Jabers’ apartment, the hamlet looks like a collection of shacks and shanties demolished by the Civil Administration.

Meanwhile, things between Fakher and the soldiers became heated, and he collapsed from their beatings. The reason for the assault is still unclear to his widow and to Imad Jaber, Fakher’s 64-year-old uncle, a neighbor and an eyewitness to the attack.

When the soldiers first arrived, Imad told us later, his nephew called out to his neighbors not to approach, fearing they would get hurt. Another military force arrived but hung back, nearby, on the ridge of a hill. The settlement of Gitit and the checkpoint of the same name are on the other side of that hill. The settlement of Itamar and its illegal outposts are also not far away.

The panicked Maryam and her children watched Fakher, who was on the ground. According to B’Tselem field researcher Salma a-Deb’i, who investigated the case, he grabbed a stone, evidently for self-defense. It never left his hand. To his family’s horror, one of the troops pointed his rifle at Fakher – a man probably the age of that soldier’s father, laying on the ground. No fewer than three bullets were fired directly into the shepherd’s body. Maryam screamed in terror and fainted. The eldest son, Qusay, tried coming to his father’s aid but the soldiers threatened to shoot him too. Little Ibrahim also saw his father slain before his eyes. ‘My father is gone, my father is gone,’ the boy shouted, again and again.

The soldiers – among the ‘brave’ IDF troops who are said to perform ‘meaningful’ military service on behalf of Israel – left immediately, leaving Fakher to bleed to death.

This week we saw a photograph: There were two bullet holes in his chest and one near his groin. Villagers put Fakher into their car and met up with a Palestinian ambulance that rushed him to the hospital in Nablus, where he was pronounced dead upon arrival.

The Jaber family has heard nothing since from the authorities.

‘I thought soldiers were supposed to protect the residents,’ Maryam says now, bitterly, referring to the troops that were standing not far away but chose not to intervene in what she describes as the execution of an innocent man.

The IDF Spokesperson’s Unit issued the following, rather bizarre statement about the incident, this week: ‘Following receipt of a report of the assault of an Israeli boy by two Palestinians near the Gitit roadblock on March 19, forces from the Jordan Valley Brigade rushed to the scene. A disturbance involving some 30 Palestinians developed, which included throwing of stones at the forces. The troops acted to disperse the disturbance and fired at one of the suspects. A hit was detected. The circumstances of the incident are under review.’

In other words, no proper criminal investigation will be launched because, presumably, the killing of Fakher Jaber does not constitute a serious incident. The forces ‘rushed’ to the scene, a public disturbance broke out and then they shot one of the ‘suspects’ to death. ‘A hit was detected.’ Bull’s-eye. What about the ‘assault of a boy’ that ostensibly initiated the whole debacle – but probably never happened? After all, had there actually been an attack on a settler child, the soldiers wouldn’t have left the scene so fast. It is also relevant to note that settlers have been known to report on ‘attacks’ and ‘thefts’ by Palestinians in order to bring in the army to take action against the so-called perpetrators, until they finally leave their land.

Maryam, wearing a traditional Palestinian embroidered dress, relates everything without tears. Besides the photo taken after his death, she has only one picture of her late husband, dressed in a plaid flannel shirt. In the apartment in Aqraba there is no mourning picture, flag or banner, but the picture with the flannel shirt was pinned to the tarp-wrapped walls of the home in Khirbet al-Tawil and affixed to a water cistern. Maryam carefully returns her husband’s belongings to the plastic bag.

The road between Khirbet al-Tawil and Aqraba is spectacular this time of year, with spring hitting its prime. Qusay has now moved his family’s flock to a pen in Aqbara; the family will probably never return to the land soaked with Fakher’s blood. The army and settlers have won, again. Before the war in Gaza, Maryam says, the Palestinians and the settlers would say hello to each other – but no longer.

This past Sunday, for example, settlers brought their flock to graze on the shepherds’ lands and refreshed their animals with water from their well. A few days earlier, they had allowed their sheep to enter the wheat and barley fields the locals had planted, ruining the harvest.

Three days after Fakher’s killing, three other shepherds from the same community were arrested on suspicion of assaulting a settler. They are still in custody.