The 32-year-old autistic Palestinian lay wounded and terrified on the ground while his caregiver, standing nearby, tried to explain to Israeli policemen that he had a disability and pleaded for his life. To no avail: He was shot dead within minutes.
Eyad Hallaq was shot to death in a roofless garbage room. According to the testimony of his caregiver, who was by his side and tried to protect him, he was executed. For long minutes she stood next to him and pleaded for his life, trying to explain to the police officers, in Hebrew and in Arabic, that he suffered from a disability. They shot him three times from close range with a rifle, directly into the center of his body, as he lay on his back, wounded and terrified, on the floor of the room.
The garbage room is located in a narrow courtyard in Jerusalem’s Old City, inside Lions Gate, exactly at the start of the Via Dolorosa, where Jesus walked from the site of his trial to the place of his crucifixion, on what’s now called King Faisal Street. It’s just a few dozen meters from the entrance to the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound. The sanctity of the area did not help Hallaq. Nor did the fact that he was someone with special needs, a 32-year-old autistic person, the apple of the eye of his parents, who devoted their lives to looking after him.
Hallaq was afraid of blood: His mother shaved him in the morning, for fear he would cut himself. Every scratch threw him into a panic, she says. He was also afraid of the armed police officers who stood along the route to the special needs center he went to, where participated in a vocational training program. His instructor taught him how to make his way there alone on foot – it took a month before he dared walk the route by himself – a little more than a kilometer from his home in the Wadi Joz neighborhood into the Old City.
On his first days at the center the teacher stopped with Hallaq next to the police guard post at Lions Gate. She tried to explain to him that he had nothing to fear; they wouldn’t do him any harm, she promised. She also explained to the police officers that he was disabled and was attending the therapeutic institution where she worked – the El Quds center run by the Elwyn Israel organization, as part of its network of facilities for special-needs children and adults.
He was afraid of the armed police who stood along the route to his special needs center. It took his instructor a month to teach him make his way there alone.
Hallaq passed the police post every day for six years, apparently without any problems. In his pocket he carried a certificate issued by the center, stating in Hebrew and in Arabic that he was a person with special needs, as well as a National Insurance Institute card confirming that he had a 100-percent disability. But nothing saved the young man from the hands of Border Policemen, quick on the draw, unrestrained, bloodthirsty.
Last Saturday, Hallaq left home a little after 6 A.M. The day at Elwyn El Quds, located at the entrance to the Al-Aqsa compound, begins at 7:30, but he always arrived early in order to prepare the kitchen for the cooking classes. Last week, for the first time in his life, he made a vegetable salad for his parents, slicing tomatoes and an onion, and dressing the result with olive oil. His father, Khairy, says it was the tastiest salad he’d ever eaten.
Eyad liked going to the special needs center. When the institution shut down for a month and a half during the coronavirus lockdown, his mother had to take him there a few times to prove to him that it was closed. Last Saturday, on the last day of his life, he set out tranquilly and in good spirits. He had a cup of tea, ate a sandwich his mother made for him, showered, dressed and left. Security camera footage shows him walking along the street, a garbage bag in his hands. Every morning on the way to school he threw out the garbage from home.
Source: HAARETZ
