The Footage Doesn't Lie, the Israeli Army Has a New Way of Transporting Wounded Palestinians: On the Hoods of Jeeps

Not one jeep but at least three different Israel Defense Forces vehicles. And not just one team of soldiers but at least three different teams who were convinced that it is both permissible and proper to order wounded Palestinians – unarmed and mostly not on Israel's wanted list – to strip in their presence and then climb onto the burning-hot hood of their jeep, desperately holding on for dear life, while being transported to the army's detention and interrogation site.

The video clip that went viral globally last week showed a wounded man, Mujahed Abadi, lying bleeding and helpless on the hood of a jeep driven by his captors and humiliators. He was unconditionally released shortly afterward and taken to a hospital in Jenin, where he is still being treated for his wounds. Abadi was not armed and was not wanted by the IDF. He was shot, beaten and taken by the troops, for no apparent reason, as his immediate release attests. Maybe the soldiers were bored? Maybe they were bent on revenge as has been common in the army since October 7? Maybe they decided to used the wounded as human shields?

The grim clip generated considerable resonance – it's not easy to watch a wounded, almost-naked man sprawled on a broiling-hot surface – though much less in Israel, of course. For its part, the IDF Spokesperson's Unit tried, as usual, to cover up, whitewash and play down the incident. "The conduct seen in the video is not consistent with the IDF's directives of what is expected of its soldiers," it said in a statement, adding, "The event is being investigated and will be dealt with accordingly."

While the army is "investigating" and "dealing accordingly" with all due energy – meaning in army lingo absolutely not lifting a finger – we visited the scene this week, high up in Jenin's Al-Jabriat neighborhood, which overlooks the city's refugee camp to the south. A field researcher for the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem, Abdulkarim Sadi, told us that in the investigation he conducted after the incident, it wasn't just one wounded man who was subjected to this abasement by soldiers, on June 22. In fact, at least four men were forced to lie on the hoods of three jeeps. Now there is a suspicion that what was captured in the video of Abadi wasn't an anomaly but a regular practice, dubbed the wounded transportation procedure.

The Jabriat neighborhood is new, spacious and relatively affluent, inhabited by people who became fed up with the hardscrabble life in the densely crowded, militant camp, and were somehow able to afford to build a home on the hill that looms over it. The homes are large for the most part, and the atmosphere is quiet here – certainly as compared to what goes on below, day and night, in the camp that has sprouted there.

Azmi Husaniya, 77, a veteran of the camp who tells us proudly that he worked for years as a welder in Israel, lives with his family in a new but as-yet unfinished home on the hill. On Friday evening two weeks ago, a few relatives and friends of two of his sons from the camp decided to spend the night in the Husaniyas' tranquil and relatively safe home. They spread themselves out in the guest room we saw this week, and slept on the floor and the sofas. It was a quiet night, of the sort that is a rarity in the nearby camp.

At 9:30 the next morning one of the guests was awakened by a phone call. "Forces are surrounding the house you are in," he was warned. The others got up quickly and immediately tuned into the camp's news websites to get updated. Indeed, the Israeli army was there, surrounding them.

The first to go out and see what was happening were Mujahed Abadi, 23, and Majad al-Azami, Husaniya's 28-year-old son. The two had barely stepped out the door when they came under a hail of gunfire. At first they had no idea where the shooting was coming from. They weren't armed, it should be noted, and neither were their friends, according to their account. The snipers, it turned out, had taken up positions in an apartment building a few dozen meters away. They shot at them from one of the building's upper floors.

Majad was hit in the stomach and arm but somehow made it back to the house, bleeding. Mujahed was wounded in the shoulder and leg, and collapsed in the yard of the house. Hearing the shooting, Hashem Selith, 27, and Mohammed Nubani, 24, tried to flee from the house while they still could. From the yard they ran toward the olive grove, located below on the slope of the hill. Mohammed jumped down into the grove and was unhurt, but Hashem was shot in the leg and fell from a height of some three meters onto the ground below the house. Despite this, he tried to reach the grove before being shot again in the right leg and collapsing. Mohammed was by his side. The two decided to lay low, in place, because of the gunfire. They lay there for about half an hour, and then spotted an army jeep hurtling toward them. They were sure that they were going to be run over and killed.

The jeep stopped short of them. The soldiers inside didn't get out, only barked at the two, in broken Arabic, to strip down to their underpants. They were then ordered via a loudspeaker to climb onto the jeep. Hashem tried to tell the soldiers that the metal hood was burning hot because of the engine and the blazing sun, but that happened not to be of interest to them. They threatened: "Climb up or we'll shoot you."

Mohammed and Hashem got onto the jeep, almost completely naked, and lay on the hood. The vehicle began moving down the hill. To keep from falling off, they held on with all their might to the metal grating covering the windshield. The vehicle traveled a few hundred meters to the home of the al-Dukum family, a tall building which the IDF had evacuated and seized for use as a command post and a detention and interrogation facility. The two were taken off the jeep and a soldier in front of the house handcuffed them. Shin Bet security service agents were already on the second floor, where Hashem and Mohammed were taken. An IDF paramedic examined and bound Hashem's leg wound. Because of his injury, Hashem got to sit on a chair; Mohammed was forced to kneel on the floor. The interrogators only wanted to know whether there were weapons in the house they had stayed at. They said there weren't.

All this time, Mujahed was lying wounded outside the Husaniya house, hiding behind Hashem's jeep, which was parked there. After about three hours, an army vehicle approached and the soldiers ordered him to get up. He said he was wounded and couldn't stand. The soldiers rammed Hashem's jeep with their jeep, until it was a few centimeters from Mujahed's head. He was afraid he would die.

Summoning his last ounce of strength, a wounded Mujahed got up. Four soldiers grabbed him by the arms and legs to force him to lay on the hood of their jeep, but he fell from their hands and dropped to the ground. The second attempt was successful. Driving toward the home of the al-Dukum family, the soldiers alternately speeded up and slowed down, in order to make Mujahed fall off, he later told B'Tselem's Sadi. The viral video only shows him draped over the hood, as the vehicle forced two Palestinian ambulances that came from the other direction off to the side of the road. But he managed to hold on and was left off at the al-Dukum house.

The third incident: As all this was going on, Samir Dabaya, 29, who lives alone in a house on the hillside above the Jenin camp, heard the shooting and decided to make a run for it to his parents' home, a few dozen meters away. As he left, however, he heard shots and decided not to endanger his parents, so he switched direction and headed for the olive grove. He noticed a drone hovering above, and a few minutes later he was shot and wounded in his arm and stomach. An army vehicle sped toward him and its passengers, too, forced Samir to lie on its hood. The incident was documented by a neighbor. Samir can be seen in a T-shirt and underpants, gripping the bars of the jeep as tightly as he can with his left hand, to keep from falling off. Unlike the two other wounded men, he was lying horizontally across the hood, with legs bent. He was taken to the al-Dukum house and then quickly released; he is still recovering in Jenin's Ibn Sina Hospital.

Samir Dabaya on the hood of an Israeli army vehicle.

Seeing the seriousness of Majad's condition, soldiers summoned a helicopter, which took him to Rambam Health Care Campus, in Haifa. His father, Azmi, tells us this week that he has no idea how he is; he hasn't been allowed to visit his son or even speak to him by phone. A lawyer he hired was permitted to visit Majad – once; he informed his father that he was in stable condition. The other son, Ahmed, remains in detention. Azmi lost his third son in the second intifada, when the family still lived in the refugee camp.

Asked for comment, the IDF Spokesperson's Unit provided Haaretz with the following statement: "During activity intended to arrest wanted individuals in Wadi Bruqin on Saturday, June 22, IDF forces that were under fire evacuated arrestees who had been wounded during an exchange of gunfire, so as to provide them with medical care. The wanted men were evacuated on the front hood of the soldiers' vehicle in violation of orders and procedures, for treatment by the Red Crescent. The behavior exhibited by the soldiers in the video clip is not in keeping with what the IDF expected of its soldiers, and is currently under investigation."

A Wrangler Rubicon Jeep, shiny and white, straight out of the wrapper, with no license plates, barrels out of the camp toward the Husaniya house. Hashem Selith emerges from it, groaning with pain. The leg with the two deep gunshot wounds is bandaged; fortunately neither bullet struck a bone. He recounts everything that happened, how he was shot and then forced by his captors to climb onto their jeep.

Hashem took part in the camp's resistance forces until he was arrested and imprisoned for three years, between 2018 and 2021. Since then he's hung up his boots, as the saying goes, and the Shin Bet surely knows this. The fact is that he too was released immediately after the incident.

"I have already paid my price," he says, with a wan smile that cannot conceal his pain.