Basem had the heart of a caring child, his name meant smile and the Israelis murdered him in Bil'in

galway | rights, freedoms and repression | news report Sunday May 03, 2009 20:37 by TD - Free Palestine Campaign

“Wait ... wait, don't shoot, this is a nonviolent protest, you've shot an Israeli demonstrator" (Basem, moments before he was murdered)

The morning of 17th April last before he was murdered, 30-year-old Basem Ibrahim Abu-Rahma went to the house of Hamis in the village of Bil'in to dispense his medicine - 3 months previously, Hamis sustained head injuries as a result of being struck by the same type high velocity tear gas bullet that would kill Basem, "then off he went to visit another friend in the village who is ill with cancer. Then a little girl from the village wanted a pineapple but couldn’t find any in the local stores. So Basem went to Ramallah to get a pineapple and was back before noon for the Friday prayers and the weekly demonstration against the theft of our land by the apartheid wall" http://www.bilin-ffj.org/index.php?option=com_content&t...id=30.

I knew Basem: a ray of light, that always lifted my spirits when I met him and now he's dead, murdered.

After a picket of two establishments selling Israeli goods and food stuffs; Woodies DIY store and Aldi, yesterday's Free Palestine Campaign's information stall in Shop Street commemorated the memory of the gentle Basem and highlighted his murder.

At the Apartheid Wall that steals over 60% of his village's land, moments before he was hit in the chest by the tear gas projectile he was remonstrating and pleading with the Israeli commander to hold fire "Raiga! don't shoot, this is nonviolent protest, you've shot an Israeli demonstrator" (the demonstrator was a French woman who was shot in the head with a rubber coated steel ball).
An activist with Israeli Anarchists Against the Wall, Roni Barkan, told Ynet that the rally was peaceful and that "no stones were thrown." http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3702569,00.html "The soldiers, who were standing less than 30 meters from us, immediately began to throw stun grenades in our direction," he said. "A few minutes later I overheard the commander tell the soldiers to prepare to throw tear gas canisters. There were two or three shots, and then Abu-Rahma was hit. I tried to stop the bleeding" - the tear gas bullets were designed for long range "crowd control" and for firing in an arc not directly at people as was the case here and in the nearby village of Nil'in where International Solidarity Activist, Tristan Anderson was shot in the head by the IOF on March 13th 2009.

True to disgusting form, in the aftermath of both shootings, the Israeli lie machine went into overdrive; in the case of Basem, the Bil'in demonstration was "violent" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gg8_ECBZ-H8 (video of the demonstration clearly shows otherwise) and Tristan Anderson was hit by a ricocheting tear gas bullet: His partner, Gabrielle Silverman, "I was very close to him when he was shot. I was only a few feet away. The demonstration had been going for several hours. It was wrapping up; it was almost over. Most people had already gone home ... We were standing on some grass nearby a village mosque, and Tristan was taking pictures. He likes to take pictures and post them on Indymedia, sometimes under assumed names. And he was taking pictures, and he was shot in the head with the extended range tear gas canister. He fell to—nothing was happening immediately around us, by the way, I should mention. No one was throwing rocks around us. Nothing was happening. We were standing there" (Related Link).