Ref: 27/2015
Date: 02 June 2015
Time: 12:10 GMT
On Tuesday 02 June 2015, security Services in the Gaza Strip killed Yunis Sa’id al-Hunnar while attempting to arrest him from his house in Shaikh Redwan neighborhood in Gaza City. The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) is gravely concerned over this incident, and calls upon the Attorney General to investigate it, find out why security services opened fire, verify that security services exhausted all the necessary measures before using live ammunition that resulted in the killing of al-Hunnar and publish the results of the investigation.
According to the al-Hunnar’s wife, “at approximately 09:00 on Tuesday, 02 June 2015, a large number of armed persons in black, some of whom were masked, raided the house and opened fire. They then kept me in a room for about an hour, during which they searched the house and seized books and papers. When I went out of the room, I was surprised to see a pool of blood by the apartment’s door. I then learnt that my husband was killed and they took his body”.
The Information Office of the Ministry of Interior in Gaza issued a brief statement on the incident. It stated: “This morning, an outlaw died of wounds he sustained when security services attempted to arrest him, but he opened fire first and refused to surrender. He also booby-trapped the house, as security services found explosive belts and devices, RBJs and other weapons in the house.”
In this context, PCHR stresses the following:
• Security services should use firearms as the last resort if there is a suspect posing insurmountable imminent danger on security services, and the use of force should be proportional to the potential damage and aims to only prevent such damage without exceeding the self-defense limits;
• The Attorney General’s investigations and judiciary’s decisions are the only reference to prove to what extent security services were committed to the standards of using firearms and the right to self-defense.
PCHR is gravely concerned over the incident, and:
