Muhammad 'Asi, age 19

Yesterday (4 May 2005), at around 2:30 P.M., I was at home. Our house is located at the edge of Beit Liqya. I heard the sound of rubber bullets being fired. They have a low [as opposed to whistling] sound. I thought there was a confrontation south of the village between children from the village and Israeli soldiers. From time to time, there are confrontations between soldiers and residents who protest the building of the separation fence, which runs along the southern side of the village. Around 3:30 P.M., I decided to join the protesters and went to a-Sawaneh, a hilly area with olive orchards situated near the southern edge of the village.

When I got there, I saw about 150 children and youths. I think the oldest person in the group was nineteen years old. They were spread out between the olive trees on the top of the hill, on an area of about 100 meters long. Three soldiers were standing about 100 meters from the children. Two other soldiers were on the roof of Mahmoud Ahmad Mafarjeh’s house, which is situated to the left, on the eastern side of a-Sawaneh. The soldiers ran after the children and the youths. The area is situated about one kilometer as the crow flies from where the work was being done on the separation fence. I saw a village ambulance parked near the demonstration. The children threw stones at the soldiers, and the soldiers fired a lot of rubber bullets. I joined the youths, and after about two hours of confrontation, nobody had been injured, as far as I could tell.

'Udai 'Asi. Photo: Iyad Hadad, B'Tselem.

At about 5:30, I noticed that the soldiers on the roof began to withdraw. At that moment, they opened intense rubber-bullet gunfire at us. I think they opened fire to enable them to withdraw. After the two soldiers on the roof withdrew, the other three soldiers began to move in a southeastern direction to a hill called a-Da'ek. This is a hilly, exposed area. Some of us ran after the three soldiers and threw stones at them. As they withdrew, they fired live ammunition, apparently to get us to stop chasing after them. We were a group of about fifteen kids, and were at the head of the demonstrators, about twenty meters from the soldiers.

Around 5:35, while I was hiding behind a boulder, I saw the soldier closest to us, who was about ten meters behind the other two soldiers, and about twenty meters from me, fire live ammunition. I knew it was live because it had a shrill sound. He fired a volley of bullets. He was tall, had a light complexion, a medium build, and wore glasses. He seemed to be about twenty-five years old. At that moment, I saw my neighbor, 'Udai Mufid 'Asi, who was fourteen, standing about ten meters to the east of me. He threw stones and was exposed. I shouted at him to hide behind the rocks, because the soldier was firing right at him. He ignored me and continued to throw stones and chase after the soldiers. I continued to watch the soldier who was shooting and stopped looking at 'Udai. Two minutes later, when the soldier was still standing there and firing, I looked at 'Udai and saw that he was lying on the ground. He moved, and was barely able to crawl. He could not stand up. I realized he had been hit. Despite the gunfire, I immediately went over to 'Udai. He was bleeding from the left side of his hip. I picked him up – he is not heavy – and held him to my chest so that my body would press against the wound and stop the bleeding.

The soldier stopped shooting, rushed over to us, and stood about ten meters from me. He shouted at me in Hebrew, which I understand a bit. From his shouting and the movement of his hands, I understood that he wanted me to put 'Udai down and surrender to him. I ignored him and continued to hold ‘Udai. Apparently, the soldier saw that 'Udai was bleeding and realized he had been wounded. The soldier left me alone and I began to run toward the ambulance, which was about 200 meters away, carrying 'Udai in my hands. A few children helped me pick up 'Udai, who was bleeding the whole way, and put him into the ambulance. As I was running, I saw some of the kids put another wounded person into the ambulance. They laid him on the stretcher.

We had reached the ambulance within three minutes. We put him on the seat. Two other fellows, whose names I don’t recall, and I went in the ambulance to Dr. Akram Samhan’s house, which is in the center of the village. On the way, the driver gave me cotton to bandage ‘Udai's wound. I kept pressing down on the wound. I felt a big hole, about one centimeter in diameter. The other two kids who were with me said that the other wounded person was Jamal Jabber Ibrahim 'Asi, a fifteen year old. He was lying on his stomach. One of the others bandaged his wound, which was under his left arm. He wasn’t bleeding a lot.

We got to the doctor’s house within three minutes. He asked us to take out the wounded. The ambulance waited near the clinic. We went inside and the doctor gave me scissors to cut Jamal’s clothes. I saw bullet marks under both armpits. The doctor gave him glucose and dressed the wound. He said that they were wounded seriously.

Five minutes after giving the first-aid treatment to the two wounded boys, he ordered them to be taken to the hospital. We picked them up and put them back into the ambulance. The doctor went with us. Along the way, he treated 'Udai and Jamal. We reached the medical center in Bidu in fifteen minutes. We took the wounded out and I saw four doctors try to resuscitate him, After about five minutes passed, the doctors ordered that Jamal be taken to another medical center in the same village. Dr,. Akram, the ambulance driver, and I took Jamal. 'Udai stayed there. When I left 'Udai, he was breathing.

The trip to the other medical center took a minute or two. We took Jamal out of the ambulance and two doctors attached him to a device to monitor his pulse and gave him artificial respiration. They pressed down on his chest to resuscitate him. The doctors continued to treat him in an attempt to save his life. Five minutes later, they pronounced him dead. We covered Jamal, who was taken by ambulance to the hospital in Ramallah. I went home, and about fifteen minutes later, a villager came by and told me that 'Uda had died.

Muhammad ‘Abd M’amash 'Asi, age 19, is a resident of Beit Liqya. His testimony was taken on 5 May 2005, by Iyads Hadad, at the site of the incident.