RIGHT GROUP CALLS FOR PROBING KILLING OF GAZAN BY EGYPTIAN SOLDIERS

Beirut, 16 Rabi’ul Awwal 1437/27 December 2015 (MINA) – The Palestinian Association for Human Rights (Witness) has called for conducting a neutral investigation into the murder of a Gazan mentally ill youth by Egyptian soldiers after he crossed the Rafah coastal border.

In a press release on Saturday (26/12), Witness said there was no security need to use lethal force against the young man, describing his murder as a war crime, The Palestinian Information Center (PIC) quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA) as reporting.

Witness called for carrying out an immediate probe into the incident and taking legal action against the perpetrators to avoid recurrences.

Egyptian soldiers on Friday shot dead a mentally ill Palestinian identified as Isaac Hassan after he waded through the Gaza sea into Egypt’s territory, and impounded his body.

In a related context, the national security apparatus in Gaza said that its officers in Rafah tried to reach the victim quickly to prevent him from entering the Egyptian territorial waters, but they failed because their posts were several meters away from the beach.

Head of the apparatus Naim al-Ghoul stated in Facebook remarks on Saturday that it was not the first time the Egyptian army killed a Palestinian in cold blood, recalling that its soldiers had killed many Palestinians, including tunnel workmen and two children.

Ghoul expressed his belief that such killing incidents reflected the size of incitement within the Egyptian army against Gaza and its population.(T/P008/R03)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)