JERUSALEM (JTA) — A senior Israeli military official said a video showing Israeli soldiers shooting at two unthreatening Palestinian teens is likely a fake.
“Since I have a lot of experience with forgery, I won’t say anything unequivocal until we conclude the investigation,” the anonymous Israel Defense Forces official told Haaretz about the video released this week of the fatal shootings. “We have asked to be given the additional bullets that were found, and we are willing to receive them now to conclude the inquiry. Since the video appeared, we will try to corroborate it against the battalion commander who was there.”
But Fahar Zaid, the Palestinian whose security cameras caught the incident at a May 15 Nakba Day rally in the West Bank, told Haaretz he saw Israeli soldiers shooting at Palestinian teens.
“Israel can say what it wants, but I am the one who stood here and saw what happened,” Zaid said, according to Haaretz.
The results of the Israeli military’s investigation are due out Thursday.
The video appears to show that the teens — Muhammad Abu Thahr, 15, and Nadim Nuwara, 17 — were shot even though they were not threatening soldiers.
The United States and United Nations have called on the Israeli government to investigate.
On Nakba Day, also known as “the catastrophe,” Palestinians lament the displacement of their people following Israeli independence in 1948.
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