JERUSALEM: At first, it seemed like the kind of shooting that has become all too common in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. A Palestinian aroused suspicions and an Israeli soldier killed him.
But then the deceased was identified as David Ben-Avraham, a Palestinian who had made the almost unheard-of decision to convert from Islam to Judaism years earlier.
His unusual journey had taken him across some of the deepest fault lines in the Middle East and led to some unlikely friendships. Most Palestinians saw him as an eccentric outcast, while many Israelis treated him as an unwelcome convert to a religion that doesn’t proselytize.
But in his final moments, he was once again viewed as a Palestinian who was in the wrong place, at a time of widespread anger and suspicion.
A DIVIDED CITY
He was born Sameh Zeitoun in Hebron, home to some 200,000 Palestinians as well as hundreds of Jewish settlers who live in enclaves guarded by Israeli troops. Tensions have run high for decades, often spilling over into violence.
Rights groups have long accused Hebron’s settlers of harassing Palestinian residents, and Palestinians have committed a number of stabbing and shooting attacks against Israelis over the years.
At its most extreme, the bitter neighbors live just a few meters apart. In some narrow alleys of Hebron’s Old City, metal netting protects Palestinian shoppers from objects thrown by settlers living on the upper floors.
Zeitoun first made contact with Jewish settlers over a decade ago, asking for help converting to Judaism, according to Noam Arnon, a Jewish settler in Hebron who went on to befriend him.
He said Zeitoun was inspired by family stories about his grandfather protecting Jews when riots erupted in 1929, when the Holy Land was under British colonial rule. Palestinians killed dozens of Jewish residents in the city.
“He went further, not only to live as a good neighbor but to join the Jewish community,” Arnon recounted.
A RARE CONVERSION
Conversion to other faiths is deeply frowned upon in Islam. In much of the Muslim world, those who do so are cast out of their communities, sometimes violently. Judaism, unlike Islam and Christianity, has no tradition of proselytization.
Such a conversion is even more fraught in Israel and the Palestinian territories, where religion and nationality usually overlap in a decades-old conflict. Judaism is the faith of most of the soldiers who patrol the territory and the settlers whom Palestinians see as hostile colonizers.
Arnon said most of the settlers from Hebron’s tight-knit community refused to accept Ben-Avraham. Only Arnon and a few others interacted with him, helping with his conversion application papers.
Religious conversions are rare but legal in areas administered by the semi-autonomous Palestinian Authority. Most are undertaken by Palestinian Christians converting to Islam for marriage.
In Israel, converting to Judaism requires an application to the government-run Conversion Authority. Ben-Avraham submitted two requests in 2018 but did not meet the requirements, according to a government official who was not authorized to speak with media and spoke on condition of anonymity.
With that pathway closed, Ben Avraham turned to Israel’s insular ultra-Orthodox community and eventually made his conversion official in 2020, according to documents published online.
AN ARREST
In the year before his conversion, Ben-Avraham was detained by the Palestinian Authority’s intelligence unit in Hebron, according to Arnon and a local Palestinian activist, Issa Amro.
The reason for his arrest was never publicly disclosed, but they believe his conversion and open connections with Israelis attracted unwanted attention.
Palestinians can face arrest or even death if they’re seen as collaborating with Israeli authorities. But few would have suspected Ben-Avraham of being an informant because his story was widely known.
Ben-Avraham told the Israeli news site Times of Israel that he was held for two months in solitary confinement and beaten before being released. Around that time, a video emerged showing him holding what appears to be a Qur’an and pledging his Muslim faith.
Arnon and Amro said his statement was likely made under duress during detention. The PA’s prosecution office said it had no information about his case.
After his release, Ben-Avraham moved in with Haim Parag, a Jewish friend who lived in Jerusalem. He returned to Hebron infrequently because of safety concerns and continued his Jewish studies. Parag said the pair regularly prayed together at a nearby synagogue.
“He was like a son to me,” he said.
Parag also said he met Ben-Avraham’s wife and some of his children, and that several close family members maintained a relationship with him even after his conversion.
The Zeitoun family declined to speak with The Associated Press, fearing reprisal. In the end, Ben-Avraham left little public record of what drove his personal convictions.
A DEADLY SHOOTING
Ben-Avraham was waiting outside a West Bank settlement for an Israeli bus to take him to Parag’s apartment March 19 when he got into an argument in Hebrew with an Israeli soldier.
Across the West Bank, Jewish settlers live apart from Palestinians in guarded settlements where they’re subject to different laws. Palestinians are generally barred from entering settlements unless they have work permits.
“Are you Jewish?” the soldier shouts in a video that circulated online and appears to have been shot by his body camera.
“Of course,” Ben Avraham answers.
“What’s your name?” the soldier says.
“David.” he replies.
“David?” the soldier says.
“Ben-Avraham, stupid.”
The soldier then orders Ben-Avraham to step away from his bag on the ground and raise his hands in the air, before saying sarcastically, “Jewish.”
A second video, apparently taken from a nearby security camera, appears to show two soldiers shooting Ben-Avraham from a close distance as he keels over backward onto the sidewalk.
The army said a small knife was found in Ben Avraham’s bag after the shooting. Parag said he gave him the knife for self-defense.
The Israeli army said it’s investigating the shooting, but rights groups say soldiers are rarely held accountable in such situations.
Israeli forces have been on high alert as the West Bank has seen a surge of violence linked to the war in Gaza. Nearly 500 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since the war’s start, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. Many have been shot dead in armed clashes during military raids, others for throwing stones at troops, and some who were posing no apparent threat.
Palestinians have also carried out several stabbing and other attacks against Israelis.
Arnon said the shooting was a tragic misunderstanding. Parag, Ben-Avraham’s friend in Jerusalem, accused the soldiers of racial profiling, saying they saw Ben-Avraham for his background and not his unexpected beliefs.
A FUNERAL
Even in death, Ben-Avraham’s identity was contested.
Parag and another Israeli friend asked an Israeli court for the body to buried him at a Jewish cemetery, filing a petition against members of the Zeitoun family who wanted a Muslim funeral. Bezalel Hochman, a lawyer representing the two Israelis, said the Tel Aviv family court ruled in their favor.
After his death caused a public outcry, the Interior Ministry granted him Israeli residency, saying it wanted “to fulfill the will and desire of the deceased to be part of the nation of Israel.”
Ben Avraham was buried in April in a Jewish cemetery on the foothills of Mount Gerizim, near the Palestinian city of Nablus, Parag said. The hilltop is sacred for Samaritans — a small, ancient religious minority that straddles the Palestinian-Israeli divide, just like Ben-Avraham.
No one from the Zeitoun family attended the funeral, said Parag, who’s designing his friend’s gravestone.
He said it will read: “David Ben-Avraham Zeitoun Parag. The Holy Jew.”

ATHENS: The legal defense team for nine Egyptian men due to go on trial in southern Greece next week accused of causing one of the Mediterranean’s deadliest shipwrecks said Thursday they will argue that Greece has no jurisdiction in the case, and insisted their clients were innocent survivors who have been unjustly prosecuted.
The nine, whose ages range from early 20s to early 40s, are due to go on trial in the southern city of Kalamata on May 21 on a series of charges, including migrant smuggling, participation in a criminal organization and causing a deadly shipwreck. They face multiple life sentences if convicted.
The Adriana, an overcrowded fishing trawler, had been sailing from Libya to Italy with hundreds of asylum-seekers on board when it sank on June 14 in international waters off the southwestern coast of Greece.
The exact number of people on board has never been established, but estimates range from around 500 to more than 700. Only 104 people survived — all men and boys from Syria, Egypt, Pakistan and two Palestinians — and about 80 bodies were recovered. The vessel sank in one of the Mediterranean’s deepest areas, making recovery efforts all but impossible.
The Greek lawyers who make up the defense team spoke during a news conference in Athens on Thursday. They maintained their clients’ innocence, saying all nine defendants had been paying passengers who had been misidentified as crew members by other survivors who gave testimonies under duress just hours after having been rescued.
The nine “are random people, smuggled people who paid the same amounts as all the others to take this trip to Italy aiming for a better life, and they are accused of being part of the smuggling team,” lawyer and defense team member Vicky Aggelidou said.
Dimitris Choulis, another lawyer and member of the legal team, said that Greek authorities named the defendants as crew members following testimonies by nine other survivors who identified them for having done things as simple as handing bottles of water or pieces of fruit to other passengers.
“For nearly a year now, nine people have been in prison without knowing what they are in prison for,” Choulis said.
“For me, it is very sad to visit and see people in prison who do not understand why they are there,” he added.
While the Adriana was sailing in international waters, the area was within Greece’s search and rescue zone of responsibility. Greece’s coast guard had been shadowing the vessel for a full day without attempting a rescue of those on board. A patrol boat and at least two merchant ships were in the vicinity when the trawler capsized and sank.
In the aftermath of the sinking, some survivors said the coast guard had been attempting to tow the boat when it sank, and rights activists have accused Greek authorities of triggering the shipwreck while attempting to tow the boat out of Greece’s zone of responsibility.
Greek authorities have rejected accusations of triggering the shipwreck and have insisted the trawler’s crew members had refused to accept help from the nearby merchant ships and from the Greek coast guard.
A separate investigation being carried out by Greece’s naval court hasn’t yet reached any conclusion, and the defense team hasn’t been given any access to any part of it.
The Egyptians’ defense team also argues that because the shipwreck occurred in international waters, Greek courts don’t have jurisdiction to try the case, and the defense will move to have the case dismissed on those grounds when the trial opens in Kalamata next week.
Greece lies along one of the most popular routes into the European Union for people fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East, Africa and Asia. While most of those cross into the country’s eastern Aegean Sea islands from the nearby Turkish coast, others try to skirt Greece altogether and head from north Africa to Italy across the longer and more dangerous Mediterranean route.
On Thursday, Greece’s coast guard said that 42 people had been rescued and another three were believed to be missing after a boat carrying migrants sent out a distress call while sailing south of the Greek island of Crete.
Officials said they were alerted by the Italian coast guard overnight about a boat in distress 27 nautical miles (31 miles or 50 kilometers) south of Crete. Greece’s coast guard said that 40 people were rescued by nearby ships, and another two were rescued by a Greek navy helicopter.
A search and rescue operation was underway for three people reported by survivors as still missing. It wasn’t immediately clear what kind of vessel the passengers had been on, or why the boat sent out a distress call.