old city gunfight

Police have released this closed circuit video footage, showing how an Israeli Arab guy snatched a pistol from the private Russian guards protecting an ultra-nationalist Yeshiva in the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem's Old City. Whew.
It captures the 20 year-old assailant, Ahmed Mahmoud Khatib of Kfar Manda in the western Galilee, shadowing the two security guards, Alex Nepelvich, and his partner, Mikhail Popov as they patrol the narrow cobblestone streets of the Old City.

As they enter a kiosk, Khatib snatches Popov's gun and runs away.

The guards chase him in the narrow aleys, and Khatib tries to shoot Popov but the pistol is locked at first.
There is a scuffle, Khatib shoots and flees.

"My weapon was taken from me by complete surprise, and then he is pointing the weapon at me with his face to me," Popov, 31, told the Jerusalem Post from his hospital bed.

"I jumped on him, and he charged the gun, and at that second I grabbed his hands. At that minute he started shooting."

A second security guard, Alex Nepelvich, is seen beside the wall and firing at the gunman.

At first, the guard misses, but catches up to him and kills him.

The video ends with Khatib slumping to the ground while continuing to fire. It does not show his last moments and whether the guard 'confirmed the kill.'


Ten people, including the security guard, were injured in the shootout, mostly by ricochets.

The private security guards were employed at the behest of the state to protect Ateret Cohanim seminary.
An Arab shopkeeper who witnessed the shooting was the first one to provide the guard and other Jewish children who had been wounded in the shootout with assistance.


Israel's Shin Bet security agency is working to
determine whether Khatib -- who has a past criminal record but no terror offenses -- acted on his own or if he was affiliated with a Palestinian terror organization.

Khatib, who is survied by his pregnant wife and young daughter, was buried Sunday in his village in a funeral attended by thousands of locals.