Rights and Accountability 23 December 2016
Mourners carry the body of Ahmad al-Kharroubi during his funeral in the West Bank city of Ramallah on 22 December.
APA imagesIsraeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian teen during confrontations in a Jerusalem-area village before dawn on Thursday.
Ahmad Nashat Uthman al-Kharroubi, 19, was hit in the neck with live ammunition and pronounced dead on arrival to a Ramallah hospital.
An Israeli army spokesperson told media that soldiers had opened fire on al-Kharroubi after he and others threw “improvised explosive devices” at them.
The incident occurred after Israeli forces raided Kufr Aqab to partially demolish a house belonging to Misbah Abu Sbeih, who was slain by Israeli forces after carrying out a shooting attack in Jerusalem, killing an Israeli woman and a police officer, in October.
A youth was killed during a crackdown on Palestinians in the city following the October attack.
The Israeli army released a video showing Thursday’s punitive demolition operation:
On Monday, Israel’s high court ordered the partial demolition of the home in which Abu Sbeih’s widow and their five children were living.Over the past year Israel has accelerated the demolitions of the family residences of Palestinians alleged to have attacked Israelis.
Such collective punishment measures are a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention and thus a breach of international law.
Last year two Palestinians were shot dead during a raid on Qalandiya refugee camp near the West Bank city of Ramallah. The objective of the raid was to destroy the family home of a Palestinian accused of killing an Israeli months earlier.
A Palestinian wanted by the army was killed in July this year when Israeli forces destroyed the home he was in after he refused to surrender himself.
Thousands laid al-Kharroubi to rest on Thursday, carrying his body from the Ramallah governmental hospital through the city center, and then to neighboring al-Bireh, where the youth’s family live:
A photo of al-Kharroubi circulated on social media after his slaying: Al-Kharroubi’s killing took place just days after that of Ahmad Hazem Ata al-Rimawi, also 19, during a pre-dawn raid in the Ramallah-area village of Beit Rima on Sunday.Israel to release bodies
In addition to destroying the homes of alleged Palestinian assailants, Israel has also delayed the transfer their bodies, preventing independent autopsy and timely burial by their families.
Media reported on Thursday that Israel was set to return the bodies of seven slain Palestinians from the West Bank city of Hebron on Friday.
Israel released the remains of seven Palestinians last week.
More than 100 Palestinians have been slain by Israeli forces so far this year, around three-quarters of them during actual or alleged attacks. Palestinians have killed eight Israelis during the same period.
Only one Israeli soldier has been indicted in relation to any of the incidents. Amnesty International has raised with the Israeli government 20 cases “of evidently unlawful killings of Palestinians, including 15 possible extrajudicial executions, carried out by Israeli forces” since September last year.
Amnesty stated that “a pattern of unlawful killings” includes cases when Israeli forces “used intentional lethal force against Palestinians who were not, or were no longer, posing an imminent threat to the lives of Israeli soldiers, police or civilians.”
According to Al-Haq, a Palestinian human rights group, “Since 1987, no Israeli soldier or commander has been convicted of willfully causing the death of a Palestinian in the [occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip].”
Comments
Blood Money
Permalink Terry McNally replied on
We here in the US must take credit for this. Our government's policy allows it, our tax money finances it, if the bullets were not manufactured here then we paid for them and are responsible for it.