A Bedouin man who was critically injured during the tragic bank shooting spree in the southern city of Be'eer Sheva last month was not shot by police officers, according to an Internal Affairs investigation published Tuesday.
Omar Walid, 22, was shot in the chest during the incident. He later claimed that police officers had shot him and handcuffed him after wrongly suspecting him as the shooter.
Police admitted that due to confused eyewitness testimony, Walid had indeed been under suspicion in the aftermath of the shooting, and had been handcuffed when taken to a hospital for treatment.
However, they said, police were not responsible for his injuries. Walid was shot by Itamar Alon, the ex-IDF officer who shot and murdered four people in the bank, among them Walid’s friend Idan Sabari.
“Public figures who blamed the police need to apologize,” said sources in the Beersheva district police department.
Southern District police commander Yoram Halevy added, “The goal of the police operation at the scene was to save lives. To do this, officers put their own lives in great danger.”