Rights and Accountability 14 March 2023
Israeli occupation forces stand guard near the Jit junction, west of the northern occupied West Bank city of Nablus, on 12 March.
APA imagesThe Israeli army killed three Palestinians in an early morning raid near Nablus in the northern occupied West Bank on Sunday.
The Lions Den, an armed resistance group based in Nablus, said its militants had moved to ambush troops with the Golani Brigade, an elite unit within Israel’s military that was stationed near a checkpoint in the area, when an armed confrontation took place.
Israeli fire killed three militants in Surra, a town near Nablus. They were identified by the Lions Den as Jihad al-Shami, Odai al-Shami and Muhammad al-Dbeik.
Pictures of them were circulated by local media following their killings:
Palestinian Authority security forces conducted raids in Nablus also on Sunday to arrest Palestinians who attended the funeral of Abdulfattah Hussein Khrousheh, who Israeli forces killed in Jenin on 7 March.Israel accuses Khrousheh of having shot and killed two Israeli brothers in Huwwara, a town near Nablus, on 26 February.
Israeli forces killed five other Palestinians in Jenin alongside Khrousheh.
The PA’s police assaulted Khrousheh’s funeral procession with tear gas canisters and used force to disperse mourners, causing his corpse to fall, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights reported.
PA forces – which are involved in “security coordination” with Israel – prevented mourners from carrying Khrousheh’s corpse through Martyrs Square in Nablus.
Mourners managed to pick up the fallen corpse and carry Khrousheh to his final resting place in the cemetery at the Askar refugee camp.
The Palestinian Center for Human Rights slammed the PA for its actions and urged a thorough investigation into the attack on his funeral.
Child killed
Meanwhile, Israeli forces killed a 14-year-old Palestinian boy by shooting him in the chest on Friday.
Amir Mamoun Odeh was participating in a demonstration against the Israeli invasion of Jenin that had killed three Palestinians the day before.
Israeli forces fired live bullets, stun grenades and tear gas canisters at protesters. An Israeli soldier shot Amir from a distance of 100 meters (328 feet) below his left armpit.
The bullet landed in his chest, according to a field investigation by Defense for Children International-Palestine.
The boy was transferred to hospital and started undergoing surgery, but he was pronounced dead soon afterwards, making him the 16th Palestinian child killed by Israeli fire since the beginning of the year.“Systemic impunity creates an ultra-permissive context where Israeli forces know no bounds and routinely shoot to kill Palestinian children in circumstances where there is no imminent threat to life,” said Ayed Abu Eqtaish, accountability program director at Defense for Children International-Palestine.
“Unlawful killings of Palestinian children have become the norm,” calling these killings “war crimes with no consequence.”
More than 80 Palestinians have been killed since the beginning of the year or died from injuries sustained previously, according to The Electronic Intifada’s monitoring.
