JENIN, West Bank (news agencies) — When Mujahid Abadi stepped outside to see if Israeli forces had entered his uncle’s neighborhood, he was shot in the arm and the foot. That was only the start of his ordeal. Hours later, beaten and bloodied, he found himself strapped to the searing hood of an Israeli military jeep driving down a road.
The army initially said Abadi was a suspected militant, but later acknowledged he had not posed a threat to Israeli forces and was caught in crossfire with militants.
Video showing the 24-year-old strapped to the jeep circulated on social media, sparking widespread condemnation, including from the United States. Many said it showed that Israeli soldiers were using him as a human shield — a charge Israel has frequently leveled at Hamas as it battles the group in Gaza.
The military said it was investigating the incident and that it did not reflect its values. But Palestinians saw it as yet another act of brutality in Israel’s crackdown on the occupied West Bank, where violence has surged since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack triggered the war in Gaza.
Abadi, speaking to media from a hospital bed on Tuesday, said he stepped outside his uncle’s house in the volatile West Bank city of Jenin on Saturday after he heard a commotion.
“I went outside to see what was happening, and looked towards the neighbors’ houses, where I saw the army,” he said. “When I tried to return to the house, heavy and indiscriminate gunfire was suddenly directed at me. My cousin who was near me was also hit.”
After he was shot in the arm, he hid behind his family’s car. Then he was shot again, in the foot. Unable to move, he called his father and told him he was about to die.
“I told him to try not to lose consciousness and to keep talking to me,” Raed Abadi said as he stood over his son’s hospital bed. “Suddenly, the call was disconnected.”
Raed later saw false reports on social media that a Palestinian had been killed in the raid. “I collapsed, because I was 90% sure it was my son,” he said.
Abadi was not dead, but his suffering had just begun.
After a couple of hours, Israeli soldiers found him. He says they struck his head and face and in the areas where he had been shot. Then they dragged him by his legs, lifted him by his hands and feet and threw him onto the hood of the military jeep.
“I screamed because of the heat,” he said. “Then, one of the soldiers started cursing at me and told me to be quiet.”
The military said its forces had tied Abadi to the hood of the jeep to transport him to paramedics.
But Nebal Farsakh, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Red Crescent rescue service, said the army had sealed off the area and prevented paramedics from tending to the wounded for at least an hour.
In dashboard camera footage obtained by the news agencies, the jeep to which Abadi was tied drove past at least two ambulances. Abadi said he was lashed to the jeep for about half an hour before soldiers untied him and released him to paramedics.
In Washington, D.C., State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the video was “shocking.”
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