Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel condemned the shooting by Israeli police in the northern Palestinian town of Tamra which left one resident dead on Tuesday, 2 February 2021, saying that the killing is a product of Israeli cop culture that sees Palestinian citizens as enemy

Ahmad Hejazi, a 22-year-old nursing student, was killed when police opened fire with assault rifles in a residential area of the town during an attempt to foil criminal activity. A number of other residents were wounded.

Adalah said in the statement that it issued on the police killing of Ahmad Hejazi: "Even before an investigation has been conducted into this most recent Israeli police killing of a Palestinian citizen of the state, Israel’s northern district police commander already declared on live TV that there was no operational mishap in the incident in which 22-year-old Tamra resident and nursing student Ahmad Hejazi was killed.

"A residential neighborhood was turned into a battlefield and police gunfire once again harmed innocent Palestinian citizens, but Israeli police commander Shimon Lavi immediately heaped praise upon his officers. This is what it looks like when Israel’s police force routinely treats Palestinian citizens as an enemy and whitewashes its deadly actions," it added.

"For too long, Israel has ignored the issue of internal violence within Arab communities and has not taken any measures to curb violence. The situation has become disastrous, leading to police invasions of Tamra – this most recent of which turned deadly."