Killing in Umm al-Hiran

Before dawn on 18 Jan 2017, police raided the Bedouin village of Umm al-Hiran. Two people were killed: a villager, Yakub Musa Abu al-Qi’an, and policeman Erez Levi. Officials described the incident as a terror attack, and suggested that al-Qi’an had links to the terror group ISIS. But residents and activists told a different story: police had fired at al-Qi’an without provocation.

Forensic Architecture has worked from the day of the incident to pursue transparency and justice with and on behalf of those residents, and the family of al-Qi’an. Since then we have reproduced and revisited that investigation multiple times, exposing glaring inconsistencies in the account of al-Qi’an’s death presented by leading Israeli figures, including Prime Minister Netanyahu.