Zio-Nazi forces kill two West Bank youths in ongoing attack

Submitted by Maureen Clare Murphy

Israeli forces killed two Palestinian youths, including a child, during an ongoing military assault in the occupied West Bank today.

Fifteen-year-old Mohammed Dudeen “was killed by a single live bullet after dozens of Israeli soldiers descended on his home village of Dura, near the southern West Bank city of Hebron, overnight,” the rights group Defense for Children International Palestine reported today.

The group adds:

In sworn testimonies given to Defense for Children International Palestine (DCI-Palestine), eyewitnesses stated that clashes erupted between local residents and soldiers as the Israeli military forced entry into over twenty homes. Soldiers used crowd-control weapons and live ammunition against youths throwing stones.

The fatal shooting took place as Israeli soldiers prepared to leave the village at dawn. Eyewitnesses report that soldiers stationed in Haninia neighborhood fired teargas canisters, stun grenades, and live ammunition at civilians. The soldier who fired the shot was reportedly not more than 80 meters (262 feet) from the victim.

Mohammad Dudeen becomes the sixth Palestinian child to be killed by Israeli forces since the start of the year.

Meanwhile in southern Gaza, DCI-Palestine confirmed five children were injured in an Israeli missile strike on Friday, including a 25-day-old baby.

Meanwhile, DCI-Palestine adds:

According to Ma’an News Agency, two young Palestinian children were injured by shrapnel on the evening of June 15 when the Israeli army bombed the front door of their Hebron home. DCI-Palestine’s own data records two teens, 14 and 17, injured in Nablus on June 17. Another 17-year-old was injured on June 18, also in Nablus. All were wounded during Israeli raids in the area.

Another youth, 22-year-old Mustafa Hosni Aslan, succumbed to wounds sustained during an Israeli army raid on Qalandiya refugee camp near Ramallah before dawn today, Ma’an News Agency reports.

Ma’an adds:

His death was announced in Qalandiya refugee camp only hours after it had been announced that he was injured, not killed, leading to a state of shock for many residents upon hearing the news.

Locals said that youths had thrown rocks and broken bottles at the Israeli troops when they stormed the camp, leading to “violent” clashes.

Two other Palestinians were shot during the raid, one in the stomach and one in the side.

Israeli forces confirmed the raid and the shooting, saying that they responded with live fire after a grenade was thrown at Israeli forces in the camp.

A total of three Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank in the last week as Israel has launched its largest military assault in the occupied territory in more than a decade following the disappearance of three Israeli teens there on Thursday, 12 June.

On Saturday, 14 June, a seven-year-old boy in Gaza died of wounds sustained days earlier during an air strike in which a suspected fighter was extrajudicially executed.

More than 330 Palestinians have been swept up in mass arrests across the West Bank in the last week, and the Israeli attorney general has reportedly approved the use of “moderate physical pressure” against those arrested, in what the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel says amounts to “pre-approval of torture.”

Since 2000, Israeli forces and settlers have killed more than 1,400 Palestinian children in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.