On Saturday, 25 November 2023, at around 10:00 P.M., Muhammad Saleh, 15, a resident of the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Kafr ‘Aqab, went to the Jabal a-Tawil neighborhood of al-Birah, near which the settlement of Psagot was established. He parked his moped dozens of meters away from the military gate at the entrance to the settlement, and then walked towards the gate and threw an empty glass bottle at it. The bottle landed a few meters away from the gate. Saleh turned around and ran. Just then, live rounds were fired at him from the military post at the gate.
In security camera footage posted on social media, Saleh is seen holding the bottle at the neck, throwing it at the soldiers and then fleeing into the neighborhood. He is then hit by the gunfire and falls about 60 meters from the settlement gate, in front of a house in the neighborhood.
Residents heard the shots from inside their homes and saw Saleh lying on the ground, but stayed inside for fear of getting shot. One of them called an ambulance. Saleh lay wounded on the ground for several minutes, and then a group of soldiers came from the direction of the settlement and gathered around him. A military ambulance drove up and stopped next to them. Meanwhile, a Red Crescent ambulance also arrived, but the soldiers did not let the crew near the injured teen. About 15 minutes after the military ambulance arrived, Saleh was put inside it and taken into the settlement.
At around 11:00 P.M., Saleh’s body was handed over to a Palestinian ambulance that took him to the hospital.
Military security camera footage: Israeli soldiers shot and killed Muhammad Saleh, 15, after he threw an empty bottle at the gate of the Psagot settlement, 25 Nov. 2023. Used in accordance with Section 27a
S.K., a resident of a-Jabal a-Tawil who lives near the spot where Muhammad Saleh was killed recounted what happened in a testimony he gave B’Tselem field researcher Iyad Hadad:
On Saturday, 25 November 2023, at around 10:00 P.M., I heard a volley of shots from the direction of the settlement of Psagot. I rushed over to the window to check what happened and saw a young man lying on the road between our house and the neighbors’, about 20 meters from our house. He was lying face down, with his head towards al-Birah. I saw he was still moving a little. I wanted to go over and help him, but was scared to go outside because there were soldiers there.
After five minutes, he stopped moving. It wasn’t until two minutes afte, that about 20 soldiers came over to him from the direction of the settlement and surrounded him. A military ambulance arrived a few minutes later, but I couldn’t see what they were doing because the soldiers were surrounding him.
After 15 minutes, the military ambulance took the injured guy into the settlement. About 15 minutes after that, the soldiers went in to the settlement, too. After a few more minutes, a Red Crescent ambulance came. Then a private Palestinian ambulance came and drove towards the settlement.
After that, I saw the private Palestinian ambulance coming from the direction of the settlement, probably with the injured guy inside. I assumed he was no longer alive, because he stopped moving when he was still lying in the street. Some of his friends came and picked up the moped he left at the intersection by our house.
About half an hour later, I saw on social media that he’d died of his wounds, and learned his name was Muhammad Saleh and he was just 15. The post said he was dead by the time the Palestinian ambulance took him away. Later, a video was posted showing Muhammad throwing a bottle and then running away and being shot by the soldiers.
In a testimony he gave to B’Tselem field researcher Iyad Hadad, a Red Crescent paramedic recounted being denied access to the injured teen by soldiers:
Around 10:00 P.M., we got a call from the general dispatch to go to a-Jabal a-Tawil neighborhood in al-Birah, near the entrance to the settlement of Psagot, because someone was injured there. We got there within about five minutes, but stopped about 150 meters away from the entrance to the settlement. I saw soldiers, some of them in positions near the first homes in the neighborhood and others standing nearby. I later realized they were standing around the injured guy.
I went on a few more meters, but the soldiers blinded me with a bright flashlight and signaled for me to stop. I stood there with the ambulance for about five minutes and then tried to get close again, but the soldiers pointed a laser at me. I backed up and stopped. After about 15 minutes, I drove away, thinking I’d try to get to the injured guy from the north. But then I discovered the soldiers blocked that road, too, and I got an order from dispatch to go back to where I was. I got there in 10 minutes, around 10:30 P.M. Neither the injured guy nor the soldiers were there anymore.
After a few minutes, I was told by dispatch that there was permission to transport a body, so I understood he’d died of his wounds.
I was afraid to get closer to the settlement, because the soldiers hadn’t signaled I was allowed to go yet. So I stood about 100 meters from the gate. After about 15 minutes, a private Palestinian ambulance arrived, and I told the paramedic we had to wait for authorization from the Palestinian DCO, but he said he was going to try to go into the settlement anyway. I followed him, and the soldiers ordered us both to stop. After about 10 minutes, at around 11:00 P.M., some soldiers carried the body on a stretcher and put it in the private ambulance. From there, he took it to the Palestinian Medical Complex in Ramallah.
