HRW: Israel orders removal of security camera that showed Nakba killings

Israeli security forces briefly imprisoned and threatened a Palestinian man whose security cameras captured the killings of two Palestinian boys in May, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Thursday.

“Israeli military officers berated Fakher Zayed, 47, for sharing the security videos with human rights groups, claimed he had lied and fabricated evidence, and threatened to bring unspecified legal actions against him if he did not remove the security cameras,” HRW said in a news release.

Zayed alleged that on June 17 four Israeli military vehicles with two dozen soldiers came to his carpentry shop in Beitunia, a town near the West Bank de facto capital of Ramallah, HRW said. It added that a witness, who was at the shop while Zayed made a delivery, said an Israeli officer told him: “If (Zayed) is not here in five minutes we are going to burn this carpentry shop down.”

When Zayed arrived his identification documents were confiscated and he was taken for questioning to Ofer, an Israeli military prison, HRW said.

“They told me that the video I gave to the press was fabricated, that everything I said and all my testimonies are a lie, that this is a serious violation of the law, and that I made the (Israeli army) look bad and caused a lot of problems,” Zayed said, according to HRW.

“They told me the cameras need to be brought down within 24 hours,” Zayed said, according to HRW. “There were so many threats … One of them said, ‘We will squish you like a bug, you are nothing.’”

Israel's military did not respond to Al Jazeera's request for comment.

Israeli forces shot and killed Nadeem Nowarah, 17, and Mohammad Salameh, 16, during a protest on May 15. In security footage, neither of the teens appeared to pose a threat to soldiers at the time of their deaths.

After an international outcry erupted over the killings, Israel said live ammunition was used at the protest, but it has continued to deny responsibility for the deaths. Multiple investigations by human rights groups, as well as medical reports and an autopsy, have shown that the deaths were caused by live fire.