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<h1 class="page__title title balance-text" id="page-title">Netanyahu
responsible for executions of children, rights group says</h1>
<header class="node__header">
<p class="node__submitted">
<span class="field field-author"><a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/people/maureen-clare-murphy"
typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel"
datatype="">Maureen Clare Murphy</a></span><br>
<b><small><small><small><small><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/netanyahu-responsible-executions-children-rights-group-says">https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/netanyahu-responsible-executions-children-rights-group-says</a></small></small></small></small></b>
<br>
<span class="field field-publication-date"><span
class="date-display-single" property="dc:date"
datatype="xsd:dateTime" content="2015-11-26T02:48:06+00:00">26
November 2015</span></span> </p>
</header>
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<p>The human rights group B’Tselem <a
href="http://www.btselem.org/press_releases/20151115_letter_to_pm_on_extrajudicial_killings">excoriated</a>
<a href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/benjamin-netanyahu">Benjamin
Netanyahu</a> on Wednesday, stating that he is responsible for
“the transformation of police officers, and even of armed
civilians, into judges and executioners” who slay Palestinians
suspected of armed attacks in the streets.</p>
<p>“Your silence in the face of Minister of Public Security Gilad
Erdan’s saying that ‘every terrorist should know that he will not
survive the attack he is about to perpetrate’ is tantamount to
consent to this unlawful policy,” <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/btselem">B’Tselem</a>
said, addressing the Israeli prime minister.</p>
<p>The Israeli rights group said the policy amounts to a de facto
death sentence, even though capital punishment is banned in the
country.</p>
<p>This apparent shoot-to-kill policy left three <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/children">children</a>
dead this week, <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/defence-children-international-palestine-section">Defense
for Children International – Palestine</a> (DCI) <a
href="http://www.dci-palestine.org/excessive_force_in_thwarting_stabbing_attacks_leaves_three_palestinian_children_dead">stated</a>
on Tuesday.</p>
<p>At least 94 Palestinians have been killed in a surge of violence
since 1 October, and 19 Israelis were slain during the same
period.</p>
<p>DCI has confirmed that 19 of the Palestinian fatalities were
children, all but four of them killed while allegedly carrying out
stabbing attacks on Israelis.</p>
<p>Videos and eyewitness accounts, however, cast doubt on whether
some of these children were engaged in attacks, and point to
reflexive use of deadly force when children could easily be
apprehended and posed no immediate risk to anyone’s life.</p>
<h2>Girl summarily executed</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aw8eYodVrVs">Security
video footage</a> shows the apparent summary execution of Hadil
Wajih Awwad, 13, and the shooting of her cousin, Nurhan Ibrahim
Awwad, 16, at Jerusalem’s Mahane Yehuda market on Monday.</p>
<p>The 30-second video shows one of the girls running towards a man
who appears to be holding a gun. The girl, holding what was
reported to be a pair of scissors in her hands, lunges towards the
man three times.</p>
<p>Each time the girl nears him, she halts, and the man is able to
back away from her. The video does not show her ever making
physical contact with him.</p>
<p>The man appears to fire at her as she is running away from him
and a second armed man appears and repeatedly shoots at the girl,
who falls to the ground.</p>
<p>The second man shoots at the second girl, seen lunging at the
air, several feet away from anyone else. At the same time, a third
man carrying a chair runs towards the second girl, knocking her to
the ground, where she remains for a few seconds. Then the second
man runs up to her and shoots her at point-blank range.</p>
<p>A fourth man runs up and shoots one of the girls as she lies
motionless, face down on the ground.</p>
<p>The video shows no effort to arrest the girls, who appear to only
posture rather than earnestly attempt to injure anyone.</p>
<p>Media reported that a 70-year-old Palestinian from the occupied
West Bank city of Bethlehem was injured in the alleged attack but
the video does not show either of the girls making contact with
anyone in the moments before they were shot.</p>
<p>Instead of being disarmed and taken into custody, the girls were
knocked to the ground and shot at close range.</p>
<p>Hadil died at the scene, and Nurhan was seriously wounded and
remains in critical condition, DCI stated on Tuesday.</p>
<p>It was reported that Hadil is the sister of Mahmoud Awwad, who <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/patrick-strickland/amnesty-pattern-israeli-war-crimes-west-bank">died</a>
in November 2013 from injuries he sustained nine months earlier
when he was shot in the back of the head with a rubber-coated
steel bullet near the <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/qalandiya-checkpoint">Qalandiya
military checkpoint</a> between <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/jerusalem">Jerusalem</a>
and the West Bank city of <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/ramallah">Ramallah</a>.</p>
<p>DCI said that it is also investigating the slaying of Alaa Khalil
Hashash, 16, who was shot after allegedly attempting to stab an
Israeli soldier at the Huwwara military checkpoint near the
northern West Bank city of <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/nablus">Nablus</a> on
Monday.</p>
<h2>Run over by settler, shot dead by soldiers</h2>
<p>A day earlier, another Palestinian child, 16-year-old Ashraqat
Taha Qatnani, was shot dead by Israeli soldiers near Huwwara
checkpoint after Gershon Mesika, a Jewish settler, ran his car
into her.</p>
<p>“According to Israeli authorities, she was allegedly attempting
to stab other settlers nearby,” DCI stated. “A witness told DCI
that he saw the girl chase after three teenaged settlers before
the car hit her.”</p>
<p>Mesika, the former head of the regional council for the northern
West Bank settlements and <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/david-cronin/why-are-israels-worst-racists-welcome-european-parliament">guest
of the European Parliament</a>, stated in a video account <a
href="http://www.btselem.org/press_releases/20151123_extrajudicial_killings">translated</a>
by B’Tselem: “I didn’t stop to think, I hit the gas and rammed
into her, she fell down and then the soldiers came and continued
shooting and neutralized her completely.”</p>
<p>B’Tselem stated that “Mesika’s account clearly indicates that the
soldiers shot Qatnani after she had already been hit by the car
and was lying on the ground, posing no danger to anyone.”</p>
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<p>The group added that in the cases of Qatnani and the Awwad
cousins, “it is hard to see how the three girls committing the
attacks posed mortal danger at the time they were shot. It appears
that the security forces involved could have easily apprehended
them without using live fire.”</p>
<p>According to DCI, Ashraqat Qatnani and Hadil Awwad are the third
and fourth Palestinian girls to be killed while carrying out
alleged stabbing attacks since 1 October.</p>
<p>Israeli Border Police <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/charlotte-silver/schoolgirl-executed-israeli-soldiers">shot
dead</a> Dania Irsheid, 17, on 25 October after she allegedly
attempted to stab an officer at a military checkpoint near the
Ibrahimi mosque in the West Bank city of <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/hebron">Hebron</a>.</p>
<p>But a Palestinian eyewitness who was next in line at the
checkpoint <a
href="http://edition.cnn.com/2015/10/25/middleeast/israel-palestinian-tensions/">told
CNN</a> that the terrified girl was shot several times while her
hands were in the air and after her school bag was checked and no
knife was found.</p>
<p>Bayan al-Esseili, 16, was also <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/video-did-israeli-soldier-plant-knife-teen-killed-settler">shot
dead</a> by Border Police in Hebron after an alleged stabbing
attack on 17 October.</p>
<p>In both Irsheid and al-Esseili’s cases, eyewitnesses told media
that Israeli forces denied medical treatment to the girls.</p>
<h2>Left to bleed to death</h2>
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<p>Israeli soldiers are shown on video neglecting to give medical
attention to a Palestinian man after he was shot in an alleged
stabbing attempt on one of their forces on Wednesday.</p>
<p>Muhammad Ismail Shubaki, 19, <a
href="http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769024">died from
his injuries</a> hours after he was wounded near al-Fawwar
refugee camp outside Hebron.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.qudsn.ps/article/79164">Video</a> published
by the Arabic-language <em>Quds</em> news network, shows Shubaki
lying on the ground, moaning and writhing in pain, his face and
back bloodied.</p>
<p>A voice can be heard asking, “Who sent you?”</p>
<p>Shubaki seems to only mutter “God is greatest” – an expression
used in everyday speech, particularly at moments of distress or
pain. A man in civilian clothing then rolls Shubaki onto his back
and searches his pockets as he is asked for his ID.</p>
<p>Israeli soldiers keep their guns trained on the youth, but
provide no first aid. The video shows medics attending to another
person, presumably the soldier injured in the alleged attack, who
was eventually transferred to hospital in Jerusalem.</p>
<p>The Palestinian Authority health ministry told <em>Quds</em>
that the teen died because he was left to bleed to death, and that
his life could have been saved.</p>
<p>Another Palestinian youth, 16-year-old Ibrahim Abdulhalim Daoud,
from the village of Deir Ghassan, <a
href="http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769027">died from
his injuries</a> on Wednesday, two weeks after he was shot in
the heart during confrontations with Israeli forces in Ramallah.</p>
<p>DCI recorded the killing of two additional Palestinian children
this month.</p>
<p>Sadiq Ziad Gharbiya, 16, was slain by Israeli forces at a
checkpoint near the West Bank town of Abu Dis after he allegedly
attempted to stab a soldier on 10 November.</p>
<p>Ahmad Abu al-Rab, also 16, was killed and 17-year-old Mahmoud
Kamil wounded on 2 November, when Israeli soldiers opened fire at
the boys at the Jalameh checkpoint in the northern West Bank, in
what the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights <a
href="http://www.pchrgaza.org/portal/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11348:weekly-report-on-israeli-human-rights-violations-in-the-occupied-palestinian-territory-29-oct-04-nov-2015&catid=84:weekly-2009&Itemid=183">described</a>
as a “crime of excessive use of force.”</p>
<p>An eyewitness told DCI that the youths had walked toward a
Palestinian gas station near the checkpoint in the middle of the
night and asked to use the toilets. They were approached by five
Israeli soldiers, who searched them at gunpoint.</p>
<p>“One of the soldiers grabbed Ahmad by the neck, when the others
found a pocketknife with his friend. Ahmad managed to get away and
took out his pocketknife, at which point that soldier fired at his
legs,” the rights group stated.</p>
<p>“The witness said that several military jeeps then arrived at the
scene and ordered him to vacate the area. When he left, he saw
Ahmad was still alive, on his knees, and surrounded by soldiers,”
DCI added.</p>
<h2>Children’s bodies held by Israel</h2>
<p>Ahmad Abu al-Rab is among nine children, including the three
killed this week, whose bodies are still being held by Israel.</p>
<p>“Beyond the punitive nature of the action, it has made verifying
the details and circumstances of the incidents more difficult,”
DCI said of this practice.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the Israeli parliament gave preliminary approval to a
bill sponsored by Anat Berko of Netanyahu’s ruling <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/likud">Likud</a> party
that would allow Palestinian children under the age of 14 to be
sentenced to prison for terrorism charges.</p>
<p>“If the bill becomes law, children under 14 would reportedly be
placed in a children’s home until they turn 14, after which the
child would be transferred to a mainstream security prison,” Ma’an
News Agency <a
href="http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769026">reported</a>.</p>
<p>“If passed, the law would only affect children who are citizens
of Israel, as Israeli military law already allows for children
from the occupied West Bank and Gaza to be placed in security
prisons from the age of 12,” Ma’an added.</p>
<p>The Electronic Intifada <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/israel-strip-searches-children-new-detention-center/14999">reported</a>
earlier this month that “Israel has arrested so many Palestinian
children since the start of October that it has opened a new
detention center specifically for them.”</p>
<p>Human rights lawyers said that children are being held in
appalling conditions and are subjected to strip-searches at the
Givon prison in Ramle, a town in present-day Israel.</p>
<p>The Fourth Geneva Convention forbids an occupying power from
transferring prisoners to its own territory.</p>
<p><a href="http://addameer.org/statistics">According to</a> the
Palestinian rights group Addameer, Israel was holding 6,700
Palestinian political prisoners in October, including 320
children.</p>
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