An elderly Palestinian-American man who died in an Israeli raid suffered a stress-induced sudden cardiac arrest stemming from external violence after witnesses challenged soldiers accounts of events in the high-profile incident, a postmortem said.
Omar Abdalmajeed As ad, 78, was arrested in his village of Jiljilya in the occupied West Bank on January 12 at an impromptu road checkpoint and apprehended after resisting a check, according to an Israel Defence Forces IDF statement. He was blindfolded, handcuffed and blindfolded for around 20 minutes, and his body was discovered by local residents and others in the raid after he left.
A copy of the Palestinian justice ministry-commissioned autopsy, released on Wednesday and seen by the Guardian, said Asad had internal bleeding in his eyelids as a result of pressure on his eyes, abrasions and bruises, and redness around the wrists as a result of being cuffed with zip ties. He had several pre-existing heart problems.
Palestinian officials had previously alleged that Asad had been beaten.
According to initial military investigation findings, soldiers involved in the incident realised As ad had gone quiet and thought he looked a little stoned before falling asleep After the zip ties were cut, the soldiers left without checking his wellbeing despite the fact a military medic was nearby, according to Haaretz.
In interviews, several witnesses said As ad had clearly lost consciousness and stopped breathing before the soldiers left. They said he was left lying on the ground rather than sitting in a chair, in the construction site where he was held.
A separate report on the Ynet news website shows that none of the troops involved in the operation have been indicted, nor have they been suspended. Military lawyers representing the soldiers said that As ad had been lawfully detained during the operation in accordance with procedures and his death was not related to the conduct of the military force. International spokesman Lt Col Amnon Shefler said on Wednesday he had no immediate comment on the autopsy findings. The investigations are ongoing. If we find wrongdoing, we will demand answers from the soldiers, and if necessary they will be punished according to our protocols and our values, he said.
In a previous statement, the military said As ad was alive when the soldiers released him, but that the Military Police Criminal Investigation Division was reviewing the incident.
As ad and his wife emigrated to the US in the 1970s, he ran a grocery store in Milwaukee, Wisconsin before retiring and returning to the West Bank a decade ago.
His case has received more international attention because of his US citizenship, as a result of Israel's military occupation of the Palestinian territories. In the year 2021, security forces killed 41 Palestinians in the West Bank who were not involved in attacking or allegedly attacking Israelis, according to human rights group B Tselem.
The US state department has asked Israel for clarification on As ad's death, while his family and several members of Congress have demanded a US-led investigation.