A video has emerged apparently showing an Israeli soldier dropping a knife on the ground and forcing a terrified Palestinian girl to pick it up before she is arrested.
The Electronic Intifada reports that the Palestinian news outlet Donia Al-Watan said the video was recorded by a Palestinian who witnessed the incident at an Israeli military checkpoint south of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank on December 1.
Several outlets identified the girl in the video as 14-year-old Sabreen Mujahid Sanad.
The 3-minute video appears to have been filmed from a vehicle stopped at the checkpoint. At the beginning, a man in civilian clothes can be seen speaking to the girl next to a white truck. Israeli soldiers are standing nearby and giving orders to others.
The girl is not restrained by the soldiers and walks toward the cab of the white truck. At 1:30, one of the soldiers throws what appears to be a knife onto the ground.
The girl, with her arms raised near her chest, trembles. The soldier then appears to order her to bend down and pick up the knife.
She kneels down and picks it up, and then appears to talk to the soldier as she holds it. As she kneels, a second soldier aims his weapon at her.
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A third soldier then approaches and leads her away with her hands behind her back.
As with other similar incidents, the video has fueled widespread suspicions that many of the alleged stabbing attempts in which Palestinians were killed involved the planting of evidence.
