Jerusalem Palestinian loses eye after indiscriminate Israeli fire
Ma’an – October 24, 2015
JERUSALEM – Thirty-six year old Palestinian Luay Faisal Ubeid lost his left eye after an Israeli soldier shot him with a rubber-coated steel bullet in al -Issawiya neighborhood of occupied East Jerusalem earlier this week.
“Minutes after I arrived home on Wednesday evening, I heard bangs, so I opened the door of my balcony land looked down on the street,” Ubeid told Ma’an while receiving treatment at Hadassah hospital in Ein Karem in West Jerusalem.
“Seconds after opening the door an Israeli soldier fired a rubber-coated bullet directly at me, hitting my left eye,” Ubeid said.
He received first aid at home before being evacuated to Shaare Zedek medical center. He was later transferred to Hadassah hospital.
Doctors discovered that Ubeid had skull fractures and his left eye had been gouged out.
Ubeid told Ma’an he planned to bring suit against the Israeli forces, saying that “there hadn’t been clashes in the area” when he was shot. Israeli police have carried out an initial investigation, he added.
Ubeid is a father of five children, aged 4 to 13 and works as a bus driver for tourists in the area.
Member of a local committee, Muhammad Abu al-Hummus, told Ma’an that Israeli forces entering al-Issawiya on a near-daily basis are increasingly using indiscriminate force on the neigbhorhood’s residents.
“Israeli soldiers and police officers fire rubber-coated bullets and stun grenades, and hose houses indiscriminately with foul-smelling liquids,” al-Hummus told Ma’an.
Several people — including children — have been hit with rubber-coated steel bullets over the past month while sitting in their homes.
Ubeid is one of thousands of Palestinans in the occupied Palestinian territory to sustain injuries this month, according to Palestinian Red Crescent documentation.
As clashes mar the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem have come under unprecedented restrictions following calls by Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu for increased measures against the population, in the wake of attacks that have left nine Israelis dead since Oct. 1.
Since the call, Israeli authorities have demolished homes of alleged attackers, sealed entrances to Palestinian neighborhoods, and detained several, in what Amnesty Intenational earlier this week termed the “collective punishment of thousands of people.”
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