Israeli soldiers opened fired
on a car of young Palestinians returning from a late-night pool party
celebrating Ramadan, killing 15-year-old Mahmoud Badran and injuring four
others.
The army has admitted the
Palestinians were bystanders, saying they were “mistakenly hit” while soldiers were responding
to reports that Palestinians were throwing rocks and firebombs on a highway
that runs between Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and the town of
Modi’in.
But the mayor of Beit Ur
al-Tahta, Mahmoud’s home village, said
the boys’ vehicle was not attacked when it was on Highway 443, but on
a smaller road that isn’t used by Israeli drivers.
The highway was built
on land expropriated from Palestinians in the occupied West Bank but is
reserved for Israelis.
Mahmoud’s father told the Tel
Aviv newspaper Haaretz that the car his son was in was driving on an underpass
beneath Highway 443 when it was fired on.
“As they approached the
passage, a car stood on the bridge, next to a man with a gun who opened fire on
the vehicle,” the elder Badran said.
“As far as I could understand,
some of the passengers jumped out of the vehicle and some remained inside, and
were hit, including my son who was very seriously wounded and died a short time
later.”
The Palestinian news website Quds
tweeted these photos of Mahmoud.
A total of seven people were
in the vehicle when it was fired on. Three of the injured passengers were taken
to a Palestinian hospital in Ramallah and another to an Israeli hospital.
The Palestinian Red Crescent
Society said that
soldiers prevented paramedics from attending to the injured Palestinians for
over 90 minutes.
The Palestinian health
ministry reported
that the three teens treated at the Palestinian hospital had bullet wounds in
the head and chest.
Israeli soldiers detained the
other two passengers, according to their father.
The Israeli army has opened an investigation into
the shooting, but such investigations have
been criticized for habitually whitewashing incidents in which Palestinians
are killed or injured.
According to the Israeli army,
an Israeli and two tourists were injured at 1am on Tuesday after a firebomb and
rocks were thrown onto Highway 443. A group of soldiers arrived at the scene
and reportedly chased after a stone thrower. That is when they shot at Mahmoud
Badran’s car.
The Palestinian Authority has
called the shooting a “coldblooded assassination.”
“The most loveable person”
In a separate incident, a
22-year-old man with Down syndrome died Sunday evening from wounds sustained
when Israeli forces raided his hometown of Sair in the occupied West Bank
over a month ago.
Arif Jaradat was shot in the
abdomen on 4 May when Israeli forces raided his village.
He is the 14th
Palestinian from Sair to be killed by Israeli forces since last October.
Jaradat’s father, Sharif, told
Agence France-Presse that his son went outside when he heard villagers
confronting soldiers.
“He got about 10 meters from
the soldiers and put his hands in the air,” Sharif Jaradat said.
He added that his other sons
were there and shouted to the soldiers in English and Hebrew not to shoot.
“There were seven soldiers
there; they started to leave but one came back and fired,” Jaradat said.
Arif Jaradat was treated at al-Ahli hospital
in Hebron, where he died on Sunday.
On Monday, Jaradat’s family
held a funeral attended by dozens of relatives and neighbors.
“He was the most loveable
[person] in the village,” his father told AFP.
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