According to Amnesty's report, which is based on witness testimonies, the killing unfolded as follows. On October 26, al-Atrash attempted to retrieve an ID card at an Israeli soldier at a checkpoint's request. As he reached into his pocket to grab his card another soldier standing behind him shot him on his right side. He was then shot six or seven times. He bled profusely as he lay on the ground for about 40 minutes while the soldiers did not provide medical treatment. The female witness who watched the situation from her balcony also reported seeing soldiers bring a knife and place it in the dying al-Atrash's hand. According to the witness:
"Then they put him on a stretcher and pushed him towards an ambulance but didn’t put him in. By this time he looked extremely yellow and I thought that he was dead at that point. He remained in front of the ambulance for another 20 minutes before he was put inside it and taken away."
According to the Israeli military spokesperson al-Atrash had attempted to stab a soldier. A video clip showing al-Atrash's laying wounded surfaced after the killing. In the video a local can be heard shouting to the soldiers "At least take him an ambulance." The video later shows tear gas being fired. According to an Israeli military spokesperson, al-Atrash died on his way to Shaare Zedek Hospital in Jerusalem. In October, Israel began withholding the bodies of killed suspected attackers as a tactic meant to crack-down on violence. Al-Atrash's funeral was therefore not held until January 2, 2016 when Israeli authorities returned his body.
Knife on Facebook
On December 2, 2015, Israeli journalist Ben-Dror Yemini published an op-ed in ynetnews in which he accused Amnesty of having an "anti-Israel agenda". He claimed that al-Atrash had posted a picture of himself holding a bleeding knife on Facebook several days before he was killed and he alleged that Amnesty had deliberately omitted that. Amnesty responded with:
"The Facebook picture does not change the circumstances of al-Atrash's death. According to our assessment, which is based on a testimony, he did not pose an immediate life-endangering threat when he was shot repeatedly. In any event. Even if he was shot because soldiers believed he posed a lethal threat, he should not have been left to bleed for 40 minutes."
