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<a class="gmail-domain gmail-reader-domain" href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israelis-cheer-after-palestinian-boy-executed-jerusalem">electronicintifada.net</a>
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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Israelis cheer after Palestinian boy is executed in Jerusalem</h1>
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<span class="gmail-field gmail-field-author"><a href="https://electronicintifada.net/people/maureen-clare-murphy">Maureen Clare Murphy</a></span> - <span class="gmail-field gmail-field-publication-date"><span class="gmail-date-display-single">31 August 2023</span></span> </p>
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<span><img src="https://electronicintifada.net/sites/default/files/styles/original_800w/public/2023-08/300823_jerusalem_zu_00_2.jpg?itok=1rp3SeMa×tamp=1693514557" alt="" title="" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" width="392" height="261" style="margin-right: 25px;"></span><p>Israelis
crowd at the scene of an alleged stabbing attack at a light rail in
East Jerusalem in which a Palestinian boy was killed, 30 August,</p><small>
<span>EFE</span></small><p>Israeli forces shot and
killed two Palestinians, one of them 14, in separate incidents in the
occupied West Bank on Wednesday and Thursday. Both cases may amount to
extrajudicial killings.</p>
<p>On Thursday, Daoud Abd al-Razaq Dares, 41, was killed by guards at
Hashmonaim checkpoint northwest of Jerusalem after striking a group of
Israeli soldiers with his truck at another checkpoint, <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/three-wounded-two-seriously-in-truck-ramming-near-modiin/">killing a soldier</a> and injuring six other people, three of them soldiers.</p>
<p>The soldiers were on their way from an army post to a bus station in
order to travel to a “team-building” exercise, Israeli media reported,
citing the military.</p>
<p>Israeli authorities said that Dares was attempting a second car ramming attack when he was shot dead.</p>
<p>At least 222 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces and armed
civilians so far this year, or died from previously sustained injuries,
according to The Electronic Intifada’s tracking.</p>
<p>Thirty-five people in Israel and Israelis in the occupied West Bank
were killed by Palestinians in the context of the occupation during the
same period.</p>
<p>There are numerous examples of Palestinians being shot and killed in
what Israel says were attempted attacks, only to be later found that no
such attack had taken place.</p>
<p>Israeli media <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-08-31/ty-article/three-israelis-wounded-in-suspected-terror-attack-near-west-bank-checkpoint/0000018a-4a37-d252-abdf-5b7f39ff0000">reported</a>
that Dares, who resided in the West Bank and had a permit to work in
Israel, arrived at Maccabim checkpoint, located along the Green Line
demarcating Israel and the West Bank, from the western side.</p>
<p>“The driver approached the checkpoint, but suddenly turned the vehicle back towards Israel,” according to the Israeli daily <em>Haaretz</em>, apparently relying on the Israeli military’s account of events. “Only then did the ramming attack take place.”</p>
<p><em>Haaretz</em>, citing the military, added that “the group of
soldiers who were run over are members of an artillery battalion” and
had left their post and were walking towards a bus stop, “where the
driver noticed them and ran over them.”</p>
<p>A soldier was seriously injured and two others sustained light injuries, according to <em>Haaretz</em>, which said that “two adults in a nearby car, and a Palestinian worker were also injured.”</p>
<p>Israeli authorities claimed that Dares sped away from the scene of
the fatal crash and was stopped by guards at a nearby checkpoint, at
which point he was shot and seriously wounded. He later died at a
hospital.</p>
<p>Israeli authorities said that Dares had attempted a second car
ramming attack at the checkpoint where he was killed. However, it is
possible that Dares was executed by guards at the second checkpoint, who
had been alerted after the crash at the first checkpoint, without
having attempted an attack.</p>
<p>Israeli authorities have a long track record of <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/al-jazeera-film-investigates-killing-shireen-abu-akleh">lying</a> about the circumstances in which Palestinians are killed, including when it comes to <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israeli-soldiers-executed-palestinian-who-posed-no-danger">alleged attacks</a> at checkpoints and those involving the death of <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israels-excuses-execution-swallowed-west">Israeli officers</a>
and soldiers. Yet Israeli media were quick to describe Dares as a
“terrorist,” deferring without skepticism to the Israeli defense
ministry narrative.</p>
<p>Dares was a father of five who lived in Deir Ammar near Ramallah, according to Israeli and <a href="https://www.wafa.ps/Pages/Details/77586">Palestinian news outlets</a>. Israeli forces raided Dares’ home as the family learned of his death:
</p>
Israel’s defense minister Yoav Gallant said that the incident “is an attack with serious consequences.”
<h2>Checkpoints</h2>
<p>Speaking at the checkpoint where the soldier was killed, Bezalel
Smotrich, Israel’s extreme-right finance minister, said “we see at this
stage the importance of the checkpoints.”</p>
<p>The UN monitoring group OCHA <a href="https://ochaopt.org/content/un-has-documented-645-israeli-movement-obstacles-within-west-bank">stated</a>
last week that there are currently around 650 obstacles impeding
Palestinians’ freedom of movement throughout the West Bank – an increase
of nearly 10 percent over the number of movement restrictions
documented in 2020.</p>
<p>These obstacles include “49 constantly staffed checkpoints; 139
intermittently staffed checkpoints; 304 roadblocks, earth-mounds and
road gates; 73 earth walls, road barriers and trenches; and 80
additional obstacles of various types within the Israeli-controlled area
of Hebron,” OCHA said.
</p>
Israel’s wall in the West Bank and its associated gate and permit regime
are the “single largest obstacle to Palestinian movement” in the
territory.
<p>“These physical obstacles form part of a range of restrictions that
the Israeli authorities have imposed on Palestinians since 1967,
including permit requirements and the designation of areas as restricted
or closed,” according to OCHA.</p>
<p>“Combined, these restrictions impede access to services and
resources, disrupt family and social life and undermine Palestinians’
enjoyment of their economic, social and cultural rights, undermine
livelihoods and contribute to the fragmentation of the West Bank.”</p>
<p>Checkpoints and other forms of movement restrictions are the sites of
frequent violence against Palestinians, with the Switzerland-based
Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/israeli-checkpoints-have-become-death-traps-occupied">describing</a> them as “death traps … where mere suspicion of Palestinian wrongdoing could lead to immediate killing.”</p>
<p>For years, human rights groups have <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/netanyahu-responsible-executions-children-rights-group-says">accused</a>
Israel of operating under a shoot-to-kill policy that has transformed
police, soldiers and armed civilians “into judges and executioners.”</p>
<h2>Palestinian boy executed</h2>
<p>That policy appears to have been in play with the apparent extrajudicial killing of a 14-year-old Palestinian who <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-08-30/ty-article/25-year-old-moderately-wounded-in-suspected-stabbing-attack-in-jerusalem/0000018a-47a1-d6ae-a5da-dfb795d50000">allegedly stabbed</a> and moderately wounded an Israeli in occupied East Jerusalem on Wednesday.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.dci-palestine.org/israeli_forces_kill_withhold_body_of_14_year_old_palestinian_boy_in_jerusalem">According to</a>
Defense for Children International-Palestine, Khaled Samer Fadel
al-Zaanin, 14, “allegedly attempted to carry out a stabbing attack in a
light rail station before he was knocked to the ground and disarmed by a
bystander.”</p>
<p>“An Israeli paramilitary Border Police officer reportedly shot and
killed him as he lay on the ground,” the human rights group added.</p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/AlQastalps/status/1696959178302992842">Video</a>
recorded from inside a light rail car appears to show the boy lying on
the ground after he was shot in the side. In the video, he is shown
alive, but lying on the ground and holding his hands in the air and
presenting no conceivable threat, as an Israeli soldier stands over and
aims a gun at him.</p>
<p>Another <a href="https://twitter.com/AlQastalps/status/1696951570670215171">video</a>
appears to show the boy lying lifeless on the ground. Additional videos
show Israelis cheering as the slain child’s body lays on the ground and
is later evacuated from the scene.</p>
<p>At least one person can be clearly heard shouting “death to the Arabs” in Hebrew.
</p>
“Israeli authorities confiscated [al-Zaanin’s] body and are withholding
it from his family,” according to Defense for Children-International.
<p>An eyewitness told an Israeli news outlet that he knocked a knife out of al-Zaanin’s hand before police shot the boy.</p>
<p>This account provides additional evidence that Border Police used
lethal force against al-Zaanin when he posed no immediate threat to
anyone’s life.
</p>
The official Palestinian news agency WAFA, citing local sources, <a href="https://www.wafa.ps/Pages/Details/77528">reported</a> that al-Zaanin was left to bleed to death on the street without first aid being rendered.
<p>“Israeli forces routinely carry out extrajudicial killings of
Palestinians, including children,” said Ayed Abu Eqtaish, a program
director at Defense for Children International-Palestine.</p>
<p>“Children suspected of committing criminal acts should be apprehended
in accordance with international law and afforded due process of law,
not executed on the spot after they no longer pose any threat.”</p>
<h2>Border Police officer praised</h2>
<p>Kobi Shabtai, Israel’s police commissioner, praised the Border Police
officer who killed al-Zaanin, saying that his actions demonstrated “the
level of vigilance of our forces in the field, who time and again
prevent and thwart terrorist attacks.”</p>
<p>Hours after al-Zaanin was killed, Israeli forces surrounded his
family’s home in the Beit Hanina neighborhood of East Jerusalem. His
parents, sister and twin brother were detained and interrogated
separately at Jerusalem’s infamous Russian Compound before being
released, according to Defense for Children International-Palestine.</p>
<p>Videos show the family’s home in disarray after it was ransacked by police:
</p>
Israeli occupation forces and settlers have killed at least 42
Palestinian children since the beginning of the year, according to The
Electronic Intifada’s tracking. This figure includes a boy in Gaza who
died as a result of injuries sustained in an Israeli airstrike last
year.
<p>Earlier this week, Human Rights Watch <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/08/28/west-bank-spike-israeli-killings-palestinian-children">called fo</a>r
an end to the “systematic impunity for unlawful lethal force” used by
Israeli military and border police forces against Palestinian children.
</p>
The New York-based rights group observed that Palestinian children are killed “with virtually no recourse for accountability.”
<p>Last year was the deadliest for Palestinian children in the West Bank
in 15 years and “2023 is on track to meet or exceed 2022 levels,” Human
Rights Watch added.</p>
<p>“Unless Israel’s allies, particularly the United States, pressure
Israel to change course, more Palestinian children will be killed,” said
Bill Van Esveld, an associate director at Human Rights Watch.</p> <h3>
<span></span></h3>
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