UN Experts Condemn Israeli Shooting of Palestinian Boy

Washington, MINA – The United Nations experts condemned Israeli military for killing a Palestinian child staging protests in the occupied West Bank earlier this month.

They called the shooting of a 15-year-old Palestinian boy named Ali Abu Aliya a serious violation of international law.

In a statement release on Thursday by the United Nations Office for Human Rights, experts called on the Israeli government to carry out an independent, impartial, swift and transparent civilian investigation into the boy’s death.

“The killing of Ali Ayman Abu Aliya by the Israeli military, in a situation where there is no threat of death or serious injury to the Israeli military constitutes a grave violation of international law. Willful lethal force is justified only when security personnel face an immediate threat of lethal force or serious danger,” said the statement, as reported by the Middle East Eye on Friday.

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Israeli soldiers shot the stomach of Palestinian Abu Aliya who took part in a protest near his village of al-Mughayir in the West Bank on December 4. He later died due to being seriously injured.

Israeli army said they opened an investigation into the incident but denied using ammunition against the protesters.

The UN statement also noted that the rally in al-Mughayir was protesting the existence of an illegal settlement post. Many children threw stones and this indicated that they did not harm the Israeli troops directly. This also denies Israel’s claim that there is no use of ammunition.

“Abu Aliya was shot in the stomach with a bullet from a 0.22 Ruger Precision Rifle, which was fired by an Israeli soldier from a distance of about 100-150 meters. He died that day in hospital,” the statement read.

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“Human rights experts (from the United Nations) are unaware of any claim that Israeli security forces are in danger at any point of death or serious injury.”

The UN experts, Agnes Callamard, who is the special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, and Michael Lynk, special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian Territories, also emphasized the wider issue of child abuse of Palestinian children.

Abu Aliya is the sixth Palestinian child killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank in 2020. More than 1,000 Palestinian minors have been injured in the past year, according to the UN rights office. (T/RE1)

Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)