U.S. citizens critically hurt at West Bank protest – Haaretz – Israel News.
Tristan Anderson, an American with the International Solidarity Movement, was hit in the head by a tear-gas canister fired by IDF troops. At the time he was apparently not involved in protest, and was not near people who were behaving violently.
This is from two days ago now, but there are a few aspects of this event that disturbed me. As pointed out in this article in the Guardian, the IDF has started using a different type of tear gas canister. According to the International Solidarity Movement, this type of tear gas canister does not make a noise when fired, fires at a high velocity, and also does not release a visible smoke trail immediately.
It sounds to me like the soldier probably aimed at Anderson’s head. Also, considering the specifications of this type of tear-gas canister, it seems that it does not make sense to use except as a weapon.
Correction: I made a mistake in presuming the intent of the soldier, there is no way I can know if he actually was aiming at Anderson.
However, I would like to note that B’Tselem recently put out a new report stating that some soldiers have used tear gas as a weapon, intentionally hitting protesters.
Across the Borderline 