The killing of Khalil al-Bairuti during the army's incursion into Ramallah, 4 January 2007

'Adnan Hamed, taxi driver

Last Thursday [4 January], around three in the afternoon, my wife and daughter and I were at Abu al-Heytham's optometry office, which is on the second floor of a building facing el-Bira vegetable market. I heard noise in the main street and looked out the window to see what was happening. I saw people running from al-Minara Square toward the building I was in. Some of them were shouting, "special forces, special forces."

At the same time, I heard shots, but did not see where they came from. About ten minutes later, army and Border Police jeeps came from two directions, one from the south and the other from the north. A military bulldozer also came from each of the two directions, and they damaged everything in their path, including merchants' stands in the market, cars, wagons carrying merchandise, and other things. I also saw some of the demonstrators throw stones at the army, and the soldiers opened intense gunfire in all directions.

I saw a fierce confrontation in the area between the square and a-Nasser Mosque, including the vegetable market. One of the bulldozers broke down a few minutes after the incident began, and the other bulldozer, which came from the direction of the square, pushed it toward the square.

Khalil al-Bairuti's coffee stand in Ramallah. Photo: Iyad Hadad, B'Tselem, 5 Janaury 2007.

At the same time I saw a helicopter hovering overhead. It fired smoke bombs and opened intense gunfire. I saw a person lying wounded on the ground, but I didn't see how he was hit. He was at the entrance to the western vegetable market, about 20-25 meters from it, and some young men rushed him to an ambulance. After that, the army fired smoke bombs, and the dense smoke completely blocked my vision for about fifteen minutes. Shortly before the smoke dissipated, giving me some visibility, I saw another person get hit and fall in the same place that the other guy had fallen. Some young men went there to throw stones at the soldiers, who had gathered about seventy meters away, in the direction of the southeastern entrance to the vegetable market. They picked up the wounded person and moved him out of soldiers' range of fire, and from there to an ambulance that took him to the hospital.

I continued watching until 4:30, when the confrontation in al-Minara Square calmed down. The soldiers apparently withdrew from there and reassembled at the vegetable market's southeastern entrance. I considered taking advantage of the relative quiet and the soldiers leaving the area, and flee. I went downstairs with my wife and daughter. The building's entrance was closed. I opened the main door and looked in the direction of the market. I saw some young men going toward the soldiers and throwing stones. I left the building. While I was walking, the gunfire started up again. My wife and daughter called to me because they were afraid to walk behind me. I went back to them and stood at the building's entrance, my wife and daughter behind me. The young men continued to throw stones, and the gunfire continued, but it was different this time. It wasn't rapid gunfire. The shots were fired one at a time, like a sniper, who aims and fires.

After waiting five minutes by the staircase, a man fleeing from the gunfire came in from the street. I didn't know him. He looked to be about twenty years old, was of average height and build, had a dark-brown complexion, and was wearing a khaki-colored jacket and a dark shirt. I didn't know if he was one of the demonstrators. After a few moments passed, he asked if he could take my place next to the door so that he could see the soldiers. I moved, and he took my place and looked outside, with half of his body protruding into the street. He watched the army jeeps that had congregated near the southern entrance of the vegetable market, near the shop of the money changer al-'Ajuli. The soldiers opened fire at us. I crouched down on my knees and my wife sat on the floor. The guy also crouched down. He put his hand to his chest and said, "Aah!" He fell backwards, onto his back, into the stairwell. My wife, thinking I had been hit, screamed. She crawled to me to see how I was. I calmed her and told her that nothing had happened to me.

I checked the young guy. He was unconscious and didn't move. From what I could tell, he wasn't breathing. I lifted his shirt and saw blood oozing from a one- or two-centimeter-big hole in the middle of this chest. I shouted to some guys to call for an ambulance. A group of young men came over and one of them identified the wounded man and said his name was Khalil al-Bayerti. The ambulance, which was in the area, arrived within two minutes. Some of the young men and I picked him up and put him into the ambulance. In the meantime, the gunfire had stopped. Earlier, I noticed that a cell phone had fallen from Khalil's pocket. When I returned to the corridor [in the building], my wife, who had picked up the cell phone, gave it to me to give to the wounded man's family. I was sure he was dead.

Some time after 5:30, we managed to get out and flee the area. We went home, where I called the hospital, and they told me that Khalil had died. I called Khalil's brother with the cell phone that had fallen. The brother was in Jordan . He said that the whole family, except for Khalil, was living in Jordan , and that Khalil had a wagon from which he sold coffee and tea near al-Minara Square. I told the brother, whose name is Muhammad, and his sister, Nura, that Khalil had been killed.

'Adnan Sa'id 'Abd al-'Aziz Hamed, 41, married with five children, is a taxi driver and a resident of Ramallah. The testimony was given to Iyad Hadad in Ramallah on 7 January 2007.