Ramallah, July 28, 2021 – Israeli forces shot and killed an 11-year-old Palestinian boy today in the southern occupied West Bank.
Mohammad Mo’ayyad Bahjat Abu Sara, 11, was shot and killed by Israeli forces around 3 p.m. as he sat in his father’s car near the entrance to the town of Beit Ummar located north of Hebron, according to information collected by Defense for Children International – Palestine. Mohammad sustained a gunshot wound to the chest, causing bleeding in his lungs. He was pronounced dead around 8 p.m.
Six Israeli soldiers deployed near the road that connects Route 60 to Beit Ummar shouted at Mohammad’s father, Mo’ayyad, to stop his car and then subsequently fired upon it, according to information gathered by DCIP. The vehicle was approximately 50 meters (165 feet) from Israeli forces when Mohammad was shot and at least 13 bullets were fired at the car, according to an eyewitness.
‘Israeli forces routinely unlawfully kill Palestinian children with impunity, resorting to intentional lethal force in situations where children pose no threat,’ said Ayed Abu Eqtaish, accountability program director at DCIP. ‘Systemic impunity enables Israeli forces to continue killing Palestinian children with no limits.’
The killing occurred near an Israeli military watchtower located near Route 60 at the entrance to Beit Ummar, a town 8 miles (13 km) north of Hebron in the southern occupied West Bank.
After the shooting, Mohammad’s father drove him to the Red Crescent in Beit Ummar. He was subsequently transferred to Al-Ahli hospital in Hebron where he underwent surgery. Following the surgery, Mohammad was placed in the intensive care unit, and he succumbed to his injuries around 8 p.m., according to information collected by DCIP.
Under international law, intentional lethal force is only justified in circumstances where a direct threat to life or of serious injury is present. However, investigations and evidence collected by DCIP regularly suggest that Israeli forces use lethal force against Palestinian children in circumstances that may amount to extrajudicial or wilful killings.
Mohammad is the 11th Palestinian child shot and killed by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank since the beginning of 2021. Israeli forces shot Mohammad Munir Mohammad Tamimi, 17, in the back on July 24. Mohammad underwent surgery at Salfit governmental hospital but succumbed to his wounds later that evening.
In June, Israeli forces killed two Palestinian teens from the occupied West Bank village of Beita located southeast of Nablus. Israeli forces shot and killed 15-year-old Ahmad Bani-Shamsa in the head with live ammunition around 5:30 p.m. on June 16 in Beita, DCIP reported. Ahmad did not present any threat to Israeli forces at the time he was shot. On June 11, Israeli forces shot and killed 16-year-old Mohammad Hamayel in the chest with live ammunition around 4:30 p.m. during a protest, DCIP reported.
The History of Palestine from the time of the plan of the establishment of the Settler State of Israel
On this page we present an eclectic group of pamphlets, journals and reports that were published from the mid-1960s to the early 1980s. These are reproduced in the hope of providing an historical background to the situation that we are witnessing in Palestine (in 2021) more than a couple of generations later.
What is striking in many of the images presented here is that the situation in Palestine has been dire, with the fascist Israeli forces implementing ‘ethnic cleaning’ in all their dealings with the Palestinian population from the very beginning and consistently ever since. (Note the date of the image at the head of this post.)
United States and West German Aid to Israel, Facts and Figures Series No 6, Asa’d Abdul-Rahman, Research Centre, Palestine Liberation Organisation, Beirut, October 1966, 53 pages.
The Partition of Palestine, Institute for Palestine Studies, Monograph Series No 9, Beirut, 1967, 55 pages.
Deir Yassin, 1948 Zeita, Beit Nuba and Yalu, 1967, Palestine National Liberation Movement, Fateh, 1970, 18 pages. A twenty year span and the rise of terrorist gangs to statehood cannot change the Israeli-Zionist mentality, bent on destruction and terror.
Committees for Solidarity with the Palestinian Revolution
Palestinian Revolution, Committees for Solidarity with the Palestinian Revolution, Manchester University Students Union, March 1970, 16 pages.
Israel Palestine Socialist Action Group (UK)
I don’t know how long this publication (or the organisation) lasted after issue No 5/6. It’s possible it lived and died when a small group were in university at the beginning of the 1970s.
Flashpoint, No 3, Autumn 1970, Israel Palestine Socialist Action Group (UK), Reading, 13 pages.
Flashpoint, No 4, Spring 1971, Israel Palestine Socialist Action Group (UK), Reading, 20 pages.
Information Bulletin, No 10, 1968, Communist Party of Israel Central Committee – Tel Aviv, October 1968, 44 pages. Theses for the Sixteenth Congress of the Communist Party of Israel: Communism – Democracy – The Jewish People by Moshe Sneh.
Grim reports of repression in Israel-occupied lands, EC Hodgkin, 1969, 4 pages. This article was first published in ‘The Times’ on October 1968. It was then reproduced as an official document of the United Nations Security Council (number 5/9501, dated November 10 1969).
Hands off our people in Jordan, Committee for the Defence of the Rights of the Palestinian People, London, 1970, 1 page.
Israel’s Threat to Judaism – In Palestine, Zionism v Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Rabbi Elmer Berger, A speech delivered to the Irish Arab Society, Dublin, 5th February 1970, Irish Arab Society, Dublin, 1970, 22 pages.
Nayef Hawatmeh, General Secretary of the Democratic Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Interview with the Lebanese newspaper Al-Beiraq on 17th April 1974, Committee for the Defence of the Rights of the Palestinian People, London, 1974, 28 pages.
