Emotions surge in inquiry courtroom. (BBC)

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	A chronology of the deaths of Israel’s Arab citizens
	The charges against the Israeli police
	Looking back at the October events
	Adalah - Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel
	The State of Israel, The Justice Authority

Emotions erupted violently Monday at the first day of public hearings held by the Judicial Commission of Inquiry investigating the October riots that resulted in the deaths of 13 Israeli Arab citizens. In the Jerusalem courtroom session headed by Supreme Court Justice Theodore Orr, the father and brother of one of the victims attacked a border policeman as he was giving his testimony to the commission.

The opening day sessions focused on the riots in the village of Jatt on October 1st, in which Rami Gharra, 21, was shot in the eye by a rubber-coated bullet and subsequently died. On that day a squad of about eight border policemen was dispatched to the village after rioters had burned tires and blocked the main highway.

When border policeman Murshad Rashad took the stand, Gharra's mother started screaming. Gharra's father and brother rushed up to the witness stand and began beating the policeman. Security officers rushed into the hall and spirited Rashad out of the auditorium while others dragged the two family members away. Gharra's mother collapsed and was carried off for medical attention.

Judge Orr cleared the courtroom as a result of the outburst and the session only continued in the afternoon after Arab Knesset Members and family attorneys assured the commission that there would be no additional outbursts.

Contradictory and revealing testimony
The border policemen who testified before the Orr Commission offered contradictory descriptions of what happened in Jatt leading up to the shooting incident. According to one, Rashad shot Gharra at a distance of about 15-20 meters. Though Rashad acknowledged firing the rubber bullets, he insisted that he was about 70 meters away at the time.

Policemen involved in the riots testified that the only riot-control equipment they had used consisted of rubber-coated bullets. No other efforts had been made to get the crowd to disperse, not even the use of loudspeakers.

Testimony by force commander Said Abu Rish revealed he did not know the basic rules of using rubber-coated bullets. Abu Rish was unable to explain to the panel why he sent a two-member force to try to disperse a crowd of at least several dozen demonstrators.

Policeman Avraham Bar testified that the Border Police had no non-lethal means to control the crowd of stone-throwing Arabs. Aaron Lerner, Director of IMRA (Independent Media Review & Analysis), offers further evidence to the unprepared nature of the Israeli police forces.

Representatives of the Arab victims were upset that the witnesses were not interrogated more thoroughly. "We hoped for more from the commission," said Hassan Jabarin, an attorney for the Arab human-rights organization Adalah, which collected testimony on behalf of the Or Commission.

Knesset Member Ahmad Tibi hopes that the public inquiry will ultimately expose those whom he said were responsible for the death of the 13 Israeli Arabs. "There are three levels -those who gave the orders, those who carried them out and those who have ministerial responsibility," he said.

The other members of the Orr Commission are Jarakh Sahal, the president of the Nazareth District Court and Shimon Shamir, former ambassador to Egypt and Jordan. Today the commission will hear testimony of events that occurred in Umm el-Fahm.

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