Child shot dead today and another in critical condition one year after ICJ decision

17 year old Mahayoub Aasi was shot dead by the private security guard defending the construction of Israel’s illegal barrier in the west bank village of Beit-Likya.

Today (Friday) around 5 p.m., confrontations developed between the security guards of the Barrier and five children from the village of Beit-Likya. Shortly afterwards, the guards shot at the children using live ammunition. Mahayoub Achmad Nimer Aasi was shot in the chest. The bullet entered the right upper side of his chest and came out his back.

When the children heard the shooting, they began to run away…but when they noticed that their friend had been hit, they returned to find him lying on the ground surrounded by soldiers. The children tried to approach Mahayub to evacuate him, and were met with more gun fire as soldiers shot in their direction. Over an hour later a Red Crescent ambulance was allowed access to him – By which point he had bled to death. His body was taken to the hospital in Ramallah.

Just two months ago in this same village two cousins (14 & 15 year old) were murdered by the military in another demonstration against Israel’s Barrier.

Meanwhile less than five Kilometers away the Israeli military injured 18 people in the village of Bil’in, during a demonstration. The protest marked the year anniversary of the decision of the International Court in the Hague that ruled that the barrier is illegal. 5 of the wounded were hospitalized.

24 year old Ramzi Yasin remains in critical condition. He was shot with a rubber bullet to the head, and underwent surgery.

20 year old Yones Yasin, also at demonstration, was shot in the abdomen at close range with a rubber-coated steel bullet: it penetrated his stomach.

Two days ago, a secret service (shabak) agent threatened the head of the popular committee in Bil’in: “if the demonstrations in the village continued, Bil’in will suffer the fate of the neighboring village, Biddu.” The agent elaborated “the people that organized the demonstration in Biddu – do you know what they’re doing today? – they are sitting in their homes and not making problems. 5 people were killed, and then they stopped demonstrating”.

In the last 18 months, at least nine people have been murdered by the Israeli security forces in the events related to nonviolent resistance to the illegal annexation barrier.

While the world focuses on Israel’s unilateral disengagement plan for Gaza the Israeli military has escalated it’s violent oppression of the popular resistance to the Annexation Wall specifically, and to the occupation of Palestinian lands in general.