B'Tselem: Israeli Police fired sponge round at Palestinian teen’s head then hit him in the head with a gun

New footage has emerged showing an Israeli Border Police officer firing a sponge round at Palestinian teen’s head. then following up by hitting him in the head. The violence took place on 10 March, 2017 in Silwad.

According to B’Tselem, the Israeli Human Rights monitor, at around 3:00 P.M on Friday, 10 March 2017, about thirty Palestinian teens and young men clashed with 20 to 30 soldiers and Border Police officers near the west entrance to the West Bank town of Silwad, north-east of Ramallah. The youths threw stones at the Israeli security forces; the troops fired rubber-coated metal bullets and tear gas canisters.

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After about an hour, sometime between 4:00 and 4:30 P.M., the youths moved away, heading toward Silwad’s gas station, which is equipped with security cameras. About fifteen minute later, some fifteen teens and young men were standing across the road from the gas station when a Border Police vehicle drove up at high speed. They ran away through the nearby fields.

A Border Police officer got out of the vehicle, fired a sponge bullet at the youths and began pursuing them on foot. The footage from the gas station security camera shows the youths running across the field and then one of them, 17-year-old D.T, falls down. A Border Police officer runs up to D.T. and hits him on the head with the barrel of his gun.