Video: 16-Year-Old Palestinian Boy Hurls Rock at Israeli Soldiers From Great Distance, Gets Shot and Killed
Photo by Ilia Yefimovich/Getty Politics News Gaza
In the ongoing “March for Return” protests held along the Gaza-Israel border, another unnecessary and disturbing death has been laid at the hands of Israeli soldiers. Sixteen-year-old Ahmed Masabah Abu Tuyur was waving his arms at a group of soldiers near the border on Friday, and then threw a rock toward their position from so far away that it couldn’t have landed anywhere remotely close—as if that even matters. The Israelis responded as they have so often, by opening fire. The boy was hit, fell to the ground as friends rushed to his side, and died the next day from his wounds.
You can watch the video here, but please note that it is graphic:
— (@qudsn) September 8, 2018
He wasn’t alone, per Haaretz:
On Friday, during the weekly “March for Return” protests that Palestinians have held on the Gaza-Israel border since the end of March, 17-year-old Bilal Hafaje was killed by live Israeli fire, while at least another 30 were wounded, the Gaza Health Ministry reported.
Gaza’s Health Ministry also said that a 19-year-old Palestinian man died of wounds he had sustained in clashes along the border on July 14. The ministry identified the man as Amjad Hamdona, whose death brings the amount of demonstrators killed along the border to 174.
Sixty-four more Palestinians were hurt after suffering “contusions” or inhaling toxic gas. More than 7,000 Palestinians attended that day’s protest.
There’s no question that Israel is running an apartheid state, and the fact that so many Palestinians have been killed while demonstrating in protest of land lost in a 1970 war to Israel is a further black eye on a nation that has accumulated many.
America, for its part, has responded by ending financial aid for a Palestinian refugee agency. And according to CNN, the Israeli response has been even less inspiring:
The IDF said that it was aware of the two fatalities, and that the incidents would be “examined by the relevant chain of command.”
While the protests focus mainly on the lost land, the people of Gaza are also protesting the blockade of the Gaza strip and the U.S. embassy moving from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The protests have been held in tent camps near the border on Fridays. Israel has claimed that the protests have been used as cover for Palestinian attacks. To date, one Israeli has died during the protests.