In the afternoon on 4 July, 2014, Taysir Sandukeh, then 31, called his wife Hiba and told her that he had left work and was on his way home from Tel Aviv. On that day the entrance to Shu’fat was blocked for cars.
Sandukeh and his brother were walking in the parking lot in the French Hill neighbourhood towards Shu’fat. They passed the Es-Sahl light rail station, which had been burned in a riot. Sandukeh has been blind in his right eye since the age of 13, but through his left eye he could see the crowd marching from Mohammed Abu Khdeir’s funeral towards him. He turned his head, looked at the soldiers and border policemen who were on the other side of the road and tried to figure out how to avoid a confrontation with them. He looked again towards the funeral, and suddenly a black sponge ball hit his healthy left eye.
When he woke up in the hospital the doctors told Sandukeh that they could not save the eye. He was transferred to another hospital, where doctors also explained that the situation was serious. They said they needed to perform complicated emergency surgery and he was asked him to sign a notice that he understood that his eye will be removed and replaced with a glass eye. Since being completely blinded, Sandukeh has stopped working and has lost his home. Eight months later, his wife left him and he is permitted to meet with his children every two weeks.
