Ref: 151/2012
Date: 13 December 2012
Time: 12:00 GMT
In an example of excessive use of lethal force, Israeli Occupation Forces positioned in the centre of the Old City of Hebron killed a 17-year-old Palestinian child, Mohammed Ziad Awad al-Salayma, on Wednesday, 12 December 2012. He was killed when an Israeli female soldier from the Border Guard Forces opened fire at him and killed him. The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) condemns this crime and believes that it form part of an escalation of Israeli hostilities in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt). PCHR calls upon the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention to take practical actions to ensure Israel’s respect for the Convention in the oPt and offer immediate protection to Palestinian civilians.
According to the findings of investigations conducted by PCHR, at approximately 18:30 on Wednesday, 12 December 2012, Mohammed Ziad Awad al-Salayma, 17, was on his way home after buying a cake to celebrate his birthday, which was on the same day. When he arrived at an Israeli checkpoint that is established at the entrance of al-Masharqa neighborhood, Israeli soldiers at the checkpoint were detaining a child, who had a plastic pistol. Once al-Salayma reached the checkpoint, an Israeli female soldier fired at him from a close range; as a result, he was hit by three bullets that penetrated his body and killed him immediately. Israeli forces kept his body for over two hours before delivering him to an ambulance belonging to the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS). As a precondition for the release of his body, Israeli forces prohibited the burial of al-Salayma in a cemetery close to the limitation zone in al-Sheikh area in the centre of the Old City.
In their preliminary investigations, Israeli forces claimed that “al-Salayma approached al-Rajabi checkpoint in al-Masharqa neighborhood and pointed a gun at the head of an Israeli soldier at the checkpoint. The female soldier from the Border Guard noticed and opened fire at the boy and killed him. It was found later that the gun was fake.”