Palestine Monitor
7 September 2009
Israeli soldiers, shooting from a settlement watchtower, shot three bullets into the chest of a Palestinian teenager at the entrance of the refugee camp in which he lived. The boy was then left to bleed for one hour as the Israeli army shot at the Palestine Red Crescent ambulance which was trying to reach him.
Around 9.30pm on Monday 31 August, Israeli troops opened fire on five Palestinian children walking by a UN School, close to the south-eastern entrance of the camp. The snipers, shooting from a watchtower guarding the Jewish settlement Beit Eil, shot 15-year-old Mohammed Riad Nayef ’Elayan three times in his chest. The boy’s father had been killed by Israeli soldiers seven years ago.
Dozens of civilians gathered to help the boy, but they were bombed with tear gas canisters. Thirty Israeli soldiers blocked the Palestinian ambulance, coming from Sheikh Zayed Hospital in Ramallah, from reaching the area where the boy lay bleeding. Ambulance driver Osama al-Najjar was shot in his leg, and Ali Al-Qaisi, sustained similar injures, while trying to rescue the victim. There was no help given to the boy for around an hour, then Mohammed was transferred by helicopter to Hadasa ’Ein Karem Hospital in West Jerusalem. Early the next morning, Mohammed died of his gunshot wounds. The other four children who were with him were detained in the settlement until 3am.
According to eye witnesses, stones were thrown only after Mohammed was shot by the Israeli soldiers, and left bleeding without any medical help.
An Israeli military spokesman claimed that soldiers started firing, allegedly in self-defense, in response to Palestinians throwing fire-bombs outside the settlement. However an investigation by the Palestinian Center For Human Rights found that all the boys were unarmed. Regardless, it is hard to believe that armed and trained soldiers, inside a fortified tower, was in great danger because of children throwing stones or firebombs, particularly considering that the UN School, where the incident took place, is around two hundred meters from the Israeli outpost. Further, even if the boys had thrown firebombs, surely this did not warrant the death penalty.
In the last 10 months, three other children have been shot dead by soldiers from the same watchtower which guards the illegal Israeli settlement. Mohammad Ali Abed Al-Fattah Nowarah, aged 16, killed on April 17 2009, Abed Al-Qader Badawi Zeed, aged 16, killed on October 14 2008 and Mohammad Al-Romhi, aged 15, killed on October 15 2008, were all students at the UN school for boys in al-Jalazoun refugee camp.
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