On 21 March 2024, David Ben Avraham (Hebrew: דוד בן אברהם), a 63-year-old Palestinian Jewish convert, was shot and killed by an Israel Defence Forces (IDF) soldier near Elazar, an Israeli settlement in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.[2] Born Sameh Muhammad Abd al-Rai Zaytoun (Arabic: سامح محمد عبد الراي زيتون),[5][6] Ben Avraham had converted to Judaism from Islam a number of years ago in honour of his grandfather, who had saved 25 Jews during the 1929 Hebron massacre.[8] In 2019, Ben Avraham was arrested and jailed by the Palestinian Authority for 58 days in Hebron, where he was reportedly tortured by guards and attacked and beaten by other inmates after they discovered that he had converted to Judaism.[8] According to available CCTV and bodycam footage reported on by The Times of Israel, Ben Avraham exited a taxi on the morning of 21 March 2024 near the settlement of Elazar in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.Two days before his killing, a gunman had fired on two members of Israel's Shin Bet security service at a location about two kilometers (1.2 miles) from the Elazar bus stop.Ben Avraham's burial was postponed for more than two weeks because his family opposed him receiving a Jewish funeral and submitted an appeal to bury him themselves in Hebron.A family court in Tel Aviv determined that Ben Avraham's conversion was proof that he wanted to be buried in a Jewish ceremony and authorized the funeral to move forward.
CCTV
footage of Ben Avraham's confrontation with the Israeli soldier and his subsequent killing
Footage from the soldier's body camera, showing the argument between the two before Ben Avraham was shot dead