The family of an elderly Palestinian-American man who died after being forcibly detained by Israeli soldiers has disputed a claim from Israel’s defence ministry that the parties have reached a compensation settlement.
In a rare case of compensation for a Palestinian claim of wrongdoing by Israeli forces, on Sunday the defence ministry said in a statement that it had reached a settlement with the family of 78-year-old Omar Abdalmajeed As’ad.
The family filed a claim against the state in an Israeli court, which had been settled by a 500,000 shekels (£127,000) payout, the defence ministry said, “in light of the unfortunate event’s unique circumstances’’. Israel public broadcaster Kan reported that, in exchange, the family had agreed to withdraw its legal claims.
Speaking to the Guardian on Tuesday, however, As’ad’s brother, Nawaf, said the family had not been contacted by the defence ministry in relation to a monetary deal, and they would not accept one if it meant dropping the case.
“We haven’t agreed anything with regards to my brother and the case. We don’t want money, we want justice,” he said over the phone from Jiljilya, the family’s village in the occupied West Bank.
“They need to explain why a bunch of soldiers who are supposed to be trained to deal with people and to protect people killed a frail, elderly man.”
A spokesperson for the Israeli defence ministry referred to the ministry’s previous statement on the matter. The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said a military police criminal investigation is still underway.
As’ad, a retired grocery store owner, died in January after he was stopped at a checkpoint on his way home to Jiljilya and “resisted a check”, according to an IDF statement, and was then handcuffed, gagged and blindfolded for between 20 minutes and an hour.
In interviews, several witnesses who were detained by the unit at the same time said As’ad had clearly lost consciousness and stopped breathing, but the soldiers left without checking his wellbeing, despite the fact a military medic was nearby.
A postmortem commissioned by the Palestinian justice ministry found that As’ad had several pre-existing heart conditions, and died of a “stress-induced sudden cardiac arrest stemming from external violence”.
The high-profile case attracted significant international attention, and calls from US legislators for a thorough investigation.
The IDF later called the incident “a grave and unfortunate event, resulting from moral failure and poor decision-making on the part of the soldiers”. It said one officer involved had been reprimanded and two more reassigned to non-commanding roles.
Criminal prosecutions against Israeli soldiers who harm Palestinians are extremely rare. Only five (7.2%) of all internal military investigations opened in 2019-20 resulted in criminal indictments, and just 2% of the complaints the army received resulted in the prosecution of a suspect.
The IDF says it opens initial operational investigations in all cases in the West Bank in which a Palestinian is killed, unless the death occurred in a combat environment.
