She was standing at the door of the house and was hit by a bullet in the back, which caused a broken vertebra and damage to the kidney. Jana Kiswani with her father at their home in Sheikh Jarrah (Photo: Oren Ziv)
On Tuesday 18.5.2021 in the afternoon, Jana Kiswani, then about 15 years old, left her house in Sheikh Jarrah to the yard, probably to see what was happening on the street. A neighbor recorded the event on video. Before she could leave the yard, police officers ordered her and her brother to return home. In the video, someone is heard shouting: “Boy, go home, before I give you one.” And a moment later, when she was standing on the threshold of the house, Jana’s back was hit by a bullet fired from a short distance, breaking a vertebra in the spine and damaging a kidney. Her father tried to check what happened to her and was hit by a bullet in his leg. Seconds later a stun grenade was thrown at the door of the house and exploded right on top of them.
Later it was written that the policeman who fired the bullet testified in the police that “a bullet was fired”. However, in the video you see and hear that he raised his stun gun, fired and then put the gun down. We will return to this shooter later.
Screenshots from the video taken by a neighbor of the Kiswani family
Even from the policeman’s testimony it is not clear who fired the second sponge ball. A sponge gun does not fire bursts, and needs to be reloaded before each shot. Were two balls fired? Was there a second shooter? And who threw the stun grenade? The chance of a sponge bullet being fired as a result of “bullet ejection” is slim. The probability that two sponge balls will be “ejected” one after the other and that a stun grenade will be thrown after them, is smaller than the probability of winning, in the same week, both the lottery and the toto.
From the video taken by the neighbor, it does not appear that there was any reason to fire a sponge bullet at Jena and her father. According to ALFA procedures [אמצעים לפיזור הפגנות] of the police, it is allowed to use sponge balls only in response to severe violence and with the approval of a commanding echelon. The procedure also prohibits the continuous use of sponge balls.
Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai – even before the era of Itamar Ben Gabir – suspended the shooter from operational activity until the end of the investigation of the case at the police station. In August 2021, it was announced that the Magistrate’s Court in Nazareth issued, at the request of the shooting policeman, an order prohibiting the publication of his name. In any case, more than a year and a half have passed since the shooting, and it is still not clear what the police investigation revealed in the case.
The Prosecutor’s Office closed the case
The sponge ball shooting in Jena Kiswani is reminiscent of a sponge ball shooting incident from exactly six years ago. On January 18, 2017, MK Ayman Odeh was hit by two sponge bullets, one in the back and the other in the left temple, during the events of Umm Al Hiran. The two shootings are also related because none of the shooters have been prosecuted yet, but the connection may be deeper.
The investigation in Odeh’s case was decided by the Ministry of Defense to be closed in September 2018, a little more than a year and a half after the incident. This is what is written on page 2 of the decision to close the Ministry of Defense:
“Oda claimed that he was hit by a sponge bullet, and this according to his feeling, which according to him taught about being hit by such a bullet together with information he gathered from various sources at the scene, suggesting that sponge bullets were fired at the scene. In the opinion of the Institute of Forensic Medicine it was determined that… it may have been a sponge bullet, but It is not possible to determine clearly. Therefore, it is not possible to rely only on the expert witness of the Institute of Forensic Medicine to determine the cause of the formation of the damage.
“The investigation shows that sponge balls were indeed fired in the area, but no real evidence was found indicating the use of sponge balls near the place where MK Odeh was hit. We will also note that during the course of the incident stones were thrown at the police officers. It was also found that during the incident the police officers used stun grenades, and that the use of the stun grenades was done legally… Furthermore, the investigation found no evidence that pointed to a particular police officer firing or throwing a stun grenade at MK Odeh and the other person. Therefore, even assuming that the object that hit the two Shot/thrown by any of the policemen, it is not found which of the policemen did it.”
But there is no real connection between the investigation materials of the National Investigation Agency and the conclusions it reached. In Umm al Hiran, stones will probably be thrown at the police, but not at the scene where Odeh was found. Odeh and six other protesters, some of them not young women, tried to reach Yaakov Abu Al-Qian, the teacher who was shot in his car by the policemen and later died of his wounds. 59 seconds after they started walking towards the Toyota driven by Abu Alkeyan, they were all sprayed with pepper spray. Then, apparently, they fired a rubber bullet at Odeh, later, after a few seconds, they threw grenades at the group Shock. And all this is contrary to the ALFA procedures, which were mentioned earlier.
The police did not find the shooter, probably because they did not look. MK Ayman Odeh after being shot by a bullet in Umm Al Hiran (Photo: Keren Menor / Activestills)
An appeal against the closure decision was submitted to the Ministry of Defense in September 2019, but to this day, the Ministry of Defense has not responded. The appeal states that it is impossible to accept the conclusion of the police regarding the stun grenades that were found there. In the films, which the police themselves took of the incident, it is seen that some of the police officers filming, whose identity is known, encouraged their colleagues to throw stun grenades. It seems that one of the photographers even handed a grenade to his friend who threw it and then accelerated A policeman named “Dudi” who would throw a stun grenade. A check of the lists of policemen who were at the event revealed that there were only three named David. It was certainly possible to find out which of them it was.
The police were not asked
The police did not find evidence of firing sponge balls while she was in the lead because she did not look for such evidence. That morning, ten ‘spongists’ were listed as participating in the operation to demolish the houses [שוטרים שנושאים רובי ספוג והוכשרו להפעיל אותם]. One of them, who at the time of the attack while she and his men were close to them, was asked by the police if he shot while she was and denied. The other nine were not even asked. In the video footage of the incident, you see another police officer armed with a soaked rifle, who was not listed on the lists. He was not even asked.
In addition, behind Odeh, and very close to him, stood another policeman, who despite the quality of the video taken before sunrise and in difficult conditions, it is possible to see that he was probably holding a shotgun and standing in a shooting position, just before Odeh’s cry of pain is heard. Immediately afterwards he appears to be preparing the rifle for another shot. Due to the quality of the film it is difficult to identify it.
During that entire time, there was another policeman standing next to him, at a distance of about half a meter, whose identity the police officers knew for sure and who was also questioned in connection with the incident. We were asked who was standing next to him. Furthermore, a short distance away from these two were several other police officers whose identity is known, among them the one who was armed with a sponge and denied shooting while she was there. They were also not asked who else was there at the time Odeh complained that he had been hit.
In the appeal, it was explained in detail how it is possible – based on the films taken that morning – to locate the same policeman who allegedly shot her. And another interesting detail that apparently connects the shooting in Umm al Hiran to the shooting in Sheikh Jarrah. The shooter from Umm al-Khiran – allegedly, allegedly – is the one who was published on social media that shot in Jana Kiswani of Sheikh Jarrah.
The same policeman, who was not registered in Umm Al Hiran as a “spongist”, was armed there with a sponge rifle. He was questioned because in the video taken by another police officer – one of those who later encouraged and urged to throw stun grenades – you hear someone asking him to shoot another protester, and immediately afterwards you see that the same protester was apparently hit in the leg. This shooting preceded the alleged shooting while she was. The policeman who took the picture was interrogated by the police and confirmed that he called his colleague, by his first name, to shoot. When asked if that policeman did shoot, he replied that he believed he did, but not 100%. It seems that in terms of police investigations, the policeman who took the picture answered the question in the affirmative.
Police officers next to the car of Ya’acob Abu Al-Kiaen, on the day of the incident in Umm Al Hiran (Photo: Activestills)
The day after the interrogation of the photographer, the policeman who was asked to shoot a sponge was interrogated in the police station. He confirmed that he was indeed armed with a sponge rifle, but claimed that he did not shoot in the incident, that he does not remember who else was armed with a sponge, nor did he see Odeh. When asked about the policeman’s words, he allegedly called his name and shouted To him “give them a sponge”, he replied that in his opinion the photographer must have been confused.
From September 2019 to May 2021, 20 months have passed, that is, a full year and another eight months. This is a reasonable amount of time, even in the terms of the Ministry of Defense, to review the appeal on the petition submitted to them against the closure of Odeh’s complaint investigation file. If the Ministry of Defense had responded to the appeal in time, maybe Jenna Kiswani and her father would not have been harmed. In other words, through two points – Umm al Hiran and Sheikh Jarrah – one curved line passes.
Beyond the specific events, it is difficult to understand why police officers so enthusiastically adopted the practice of shooting a sponge bullet in the back, even though police procedure expressly forbids it. Perhaps also in this matter the Jewish concept of the gap between the written Torah and the oral Torah dominates. And those next to us will be stuck that in the near future, in the era of “national security” and increasing “governance”, the restrictions on the use of this problematic weapon will not be officially lifted.
Ariel Livna is a doctor of criminology who is working with his director daughter, Roni Livna, on a film about the Umm Al Hiran incident.