Karam Qawasmi shot in back idf
© Screencap/Yumna PatelKaram Qawasmi recounts being shot by laughing Israeli soldiers.
A Palestinian man who was recorded last year in a shocking encounter where he was shot in the back while walking away from the camera with his arms stretched above his head has come forward with new allegations of abuse surrounding the incident.

The grainy video was made in 2018 by Israeli soldiers and films Karam Qawasmi in a tunnel as a sponge-tipped bullet strikes him in the back, he then falls to the ground. The clip picks up Qawasmi's screams of pain as well as laughter, which Qawasmi says came from the Israeli soldiers off-camera who fired at him. The video was leaked to media earlier this month.


Among Palestinians, the footage was shocking. A spokesman for the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem condemned the targeting of an unarmed man as "exceptional documentation [that] shows what, sadly, is an unexceptional event: Israeli security forces hurting a Palestinian for absolutely no reason."

Israeli police have opened an investigation into the video. Qawasmi said he did not file a complaint at the time.

Now Qawasmi says that the entire event last hours, with Israeli soldiers detaining him, beating him and further abusing him after he was shot. Qawasmi was never charged with a crime and is unclear to him why soldiers stopped him in the first place. His injuries took one month to recover from, but the terrifying ordeal has lasting impacts.
Yumna Patel is the Palestine correspondent for Mondoweiss.