Israel's Use of 'Crowd Control' Weapons Faces Scrutiny

Jillian Kestler-D'Amours

Mar 18, 2013

An Israeli policemen wearing a belt with rubber bullets stands near Palestinian protesters during clashes at a demonstration denouncing a U.S.-made film that mocks the Prophet Mohammed, near Damascus Gate outside Jerusalem's Old City September 14, 2012. Israeli police, some on horseback, used stun grenades and made a number of arrests outside Jerusalem's Old City as a few dozen demonstrators tried to march on to the nearby U.S. consulate. REUTERS/Ammar Awad (JERUSALEM - Tags: POLITICS CIVIL UNREST) - RTR37Y — An Israeli policeman wearing a bandolier of rubber bullets stands near Palestinian protesters during clashes at a demonstration denouncing a US-made film that mocks the Prophet Muhammad, near Damascus Gate outside Jerusalem's Old City, Sept. 14, 2012. — REUTERS/Ammar Awad

AL-RAM, West Bank — Several hundred Palestinian mourners solemnly carried the body of 35-year-old Moayad Ghazawneh — draped in a Palestinian flag, and lying in a wooden, open casket — to the cemetery in the village of Al-Ram, just north of Jerusalem, on Friday afternoon.

Masked members of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade fired machine guns and handguns from the rooftop of a local school, and residents stood quietly, while the body was laid to rest. After the funeral, at a separate entrance to Al-Ram, dozens of Israeli soldiers shot tear gas canisters across a normally busy roundabout and four-lane road towards rock-throwing Palestinian youth.