Rights and Accountability 5 December 2020
Palestinians mourn during the funeral of 15-year-old Ali Nasser, who was killed by Israeli forces the day before, in the central West Bank village of al-Mughayyir on 5 December.
APA imagesWhat crime did 15-year-old Ali Ayman Saleh Nasser commit to be killed by occupation soldiers?
Observing a protest, apparently.
Israeli forces fatally shot Nasser in the stomach in the central West Bank village of al-Mughayyir on Friday during a protest against Israeli land theft in the area.
Nasser was reportedly not participating in demonstrations when he was killed.
All he did was watch, according to field investigations by Defense for Children International Palestine (DCIP).
The child was taken in a private car to the entrance of a nearby village. From there, an ambulance took him to the Palestine Medical Complex in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah.
He was pronounced dead shortly afterward.
Nasser is the sixth Palestinian child in the occupied West Bank to be killed by Israeli forces this year.
Ali Ayman Saleh Nasser
Kill and lie
As in many other cases when occupation forces killed a Palestinian child, the Israeli military lied about what happened.
The army denied using live fire during the Friday protests, according to Tel Aviv daily Haaretz.
The military spokesperson insisted that soldiers used rubber-coated steel bullets and US-made Ruger rifles.
But Israel’s claim that Ruger rifles do not fire live ammunition is an outright lie. These guns fire live bullets, albeit smaller 22-caliber rounds.
They are nonetheless lethal.
During the second intifada that began in 2000, the head of the Israeli army’s operations directorate ruled that “the Ruger cannot be considered a non-lethal weapon and may be used only in circumstances that justify live fire,” B’Tselem stated in 2015.
“In view of the large number of people hit and even killed by 0.22 bullets early in the second intifada, use of this ammunition was suspended from 2001 to 2008,” the human rights group added.
B’Tselem began documenting Israel’s sharply increased use of 22-caliber rifles against unarmed Palestinian protesters in 2015.
DCIP confirmed that Nasser was killed by live fire. The group also confirmed that Israeli soldiers used sponge-tipped rounds and tear gas grenades against protesters.
Israeli forces also fired rubber-coated steel bullets, injuring four other Palestinian youths during demonstrations, Haaretz reported.
While Israel claims that rubber-coated bullets, sponge-tipped rounds and tear gas are also non-lethal, they have indeed killed and severely injured many Palestinians, including children.
Calls for Israel to investigate itself
Nickolay Mladenov, the UN Middle East peace envoy, called on Israel to “swiftly and independently investigate this shocking and unacceptable incident.”
It is unclear what Mladenov expects by calling for an “independent” investigation by the same army that committed the crime to be investigated.The European Union’s representative office in the occupied West Bank also declared that this “shocking incident must be swiftly and fully investigated by the Israeli authorities in order to bring the perpetrators to justice.”
These officials all know full well that Israel’s self-investigations are a sham, shielding soldiers from accountability.
So a call for Israel to investigate itself amounts to a call for Israel to continue to enjoy impunity.
In 2016, B’Tselem called Israel’s investigation system a “fig leaf” and said it would stop cooperating with it.
A recent report by Israeli human rights group Yesh Din shows how a deliberately long and bureaucratic process is used to run out the clock, making a genuine investigation all but impossible.
The results speak for themselves: Only one Israeli soldier has been indicted over the use of live fire against unarmed protesters during the Great March of Return demonstrations held along Gaza’s eastern boundary from March 2018.
Israeli forces killed more than 215 unarmed Palestinians during those protests.
The soldier in question killed a 14-year-old child. His “punishment” was community service and a demotion.
The EU’s tweet calling for another sham Israeli self-investigation asks, “How many more Palestinian children will be subject to the excessive use of lethal force by the Israeli security forces?”
The answer is simple: Many more Palestinian children will be killed as long as the European Union and other governments continue to reward Israel for its abuses, ensure its impunity and trade with its weapons industry.
Frequent attacks
Residents of al-Mughayyir hold weekly demonstrations to protest a nearby illegal settlement outpost built on their land.
All Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank are illegal under international law and building them is a war crime.
What Israel refers to as outposts are often built without even Israel’s permission. Still, the Israeli government sometimes provides the settlers with electricity – a basic service not reliably available to Palestinians living in Area C, the 60 percent of the occupied West Bank that remains under full Israeli military control.
The village is frequently attacked by Israeli settlers.
Settlers shot and killed a Palestinian father of four in the village in January 2019 under the protection of the military.
In January 2018, Israeli soldiers fatally shot 16-year-old Laith Abu Naim in the head with live ammunition during protests against the theft of village land by Israeli settlers.
Comments
Life is Cheap in Israel
Permalink Stefano R. Baldari replied on
Occupied Palestine (Israel) can, and of course will, get away with killing, i.e. cold bloodedly murdering, Ali Ayman Saleh Nasser. That is because life is very, very, very cheap in Occupied Palestine (Israel) if you are not a white Jew. For white supremacist Jewish Zionists, and their supporters in the U.S., Britain, et al, other human beings lives simply don't count, period. In fact, many Jewish Zionists don't see many others as even being human.
To expect Occupied Palestine (Israel) to investigate itself is ludicrous. It would be like asking the fox to investigate itself after attacking the hen house. The MSM in the U.S., ALL supporters of Occupied Palestine (Israel), will do little, if any, honest reporting of what actually occurred to this poor child.
The E.U. is replete with cowards who will sit back and do nothing.
As an American citizen, I feel ashamed of what our government does to prop up a fascist white supremacist, illegitimate state. An illegitimate, parasitical state that could not survive, even for a year, without the largesse American tax dollars.
Murder
Permalink Frank Dallas replied on
Israel kills and lies. A neat summary of its history. What else could be expected from a State born in terrorism and racism? How many people in the US or Europe have noticed this death? The media play it down. Princess Matilda gets a chill and it's on the front page of every newspaper in the UK. Such is the way the people's priorities are manipulated by a cynical, vicious press which serves a cynical and vicious world elite whose watchword is: violence works. The nasty truth is prettified daily by reports about royalty, pop stars, film stars, celebs of every variety but the death of a Palestinian boy? Who cares. One more victim of the demented conquest which calls itself progress. The nasty truth is wrapped in sickly propaganda about democracy and human rights. If we reallhy believed in those there would be worldwide outrage at this murder. There would be demonstrations in every capital. The poor of the world are dispensable. Israel flourishes through US patronage and the US is rich because it has never shied from using extreme violence to further its interests. But the poor of the world are the majority. The white-skinnned people are the minority. The rich are a tiny minority. That's why the global elite works night and day to undermine democracy. And that's why young boys who should be looking forward to decades of happy life are shot in the stomach as if they are rabid dogs. What prevents the planet being covered in shame is the false ideology which is blasted out in the headlines every day, fills the airwaves every day, is propounded in classrooms and lecture theatres every day, spills from the glib mouths of venal politicians every day. We are one humanity. All the divisions are based on falsehood. Chief amongst them the Zionist falsehood that Jews are superior to Arabs. Only a revolt by the world's majority can change this. They have a global system. So must we. A global revolt against colonialism, racism and capitalism. In Ali's memory.
more thoughts and prayers from "the international community"
Permalink tom hall replied on
Every bit as shocking as the crimes themselves is the cynical bleating by UN and EU representatives that Israel must investigate itself. Does anyone pay the least attention to these morally craven pleas? Israel doesn't. Until real sanctions are imposed, the Apartheid state will carry on, correctly interpreting these fraudulent appeals as a tacit endorsement of war crimes. In this respect, international bodies which refuse to act against such blatantly criminal offenses are as guilty as their perpetrators. As things stand now, Israel actually derives reassurance from these exhortations. Their main concern is properly directly at the BDS campaign, which alone holds the potential to undermine the Zionist regime. We must continue to apply pressure on behalf of Palestine and in spite of lies, smears, blacklisting and unconstitutional legislation, so that boycott, divestment and sanctions bite deep into the rotten heart of racist Israel. Forward into the new year.
Canada's uncondition support of Israel
Permalink Gordon Gosse replied on
Possibly the worst example of Canada’s misguided foreign policy is our government’s unconditional support of a nation which imprisons, tortures and murders more children than any other nation on planet earth.