Autistic Palestinian killed by police: "tragedy" according to Netanyahu

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on June 7. Menahem Kahana / Pool via REUTERS

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The death of an autistic Palestinian 8 days ago, who was mistakenly killed by an Israeli police officer in Jerusalem, is a "tragedy," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday, offering his condolences to the bereaved family.

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Iyad Hallak, a 32-year-old Palestinian man with autism, was shot dead on May 30 in the Old City of Jerusalem by Israeli police who believed he was wrongly armed. Thousands gathered for the young man's funeral as the hashtag #PalestinianLivesMatter echoed protests against police violence and racism in the United States on social media.

"  What happened with Iyad Hallak is a tragedy, it is a man with a handicap, autism, and who was suspected, we know it wrongly, of being a terrorist in a very sensitive place  ", said Netanyahu, eight days after the event.

"  We offer our condolences to the family, I think this feeling is shared by the entire Israeli public, as well as by the whole Israeli government,  " he added, saying he expected the result of a investigation into this death.

The Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem and Yehudah Glick, a former right-wing MP who campaigned to increase the Jewish presence on the Esplanade of the Mosques, known to the Jews as the Temple Mount, offered their condolences in person to the family. But Yehudah Glick, who had survived an assassination attempt in 2014 for his activities in Jerusalem, was attacked while leaving the Hallak family's mourning tent in what he described as a "  murderous lynching  " and was slightly injured.

Police arrested one person in the attack and returned him to house arrest while the investigation continued. The tragic death of Iyad Hallak "  does not justify the savage attack  " against Yehudah Glick, said the Prime Minister on Sunday.

(With Afp)

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