Ref: 62/2023
Date: 06 June 2023
Time: 11:30 GMT
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) condemns in strongest terms the Israeli Occupation Forces’ (IOF) shooting attack that occurred last Thursday and killed a Palestinian toddler four days after he was injured with his father near the entrance to Nabi Saleh village in Ramallah. This crime comes as a part of IOF’s lenient shooting standards and unjustified shooting at Palestinians supported by Israel’s top political and military echelons.
According to PCHR’s investigations, the testimony of the toddler’s father and observations of PCHR’s fieldworker, who was coincidentally in the scene, at approximately 21:00 on Thursday, 01 June 2023, IOF established a military checkpoint at the main entrance to the Nabi Saleh village, northwest of Ramallah, and closed the metal detector gate at the entrance, preventing vehicles’ movement. As the gate was closed and the soldiers deployed around the area, many young men and boys gathered and threw stones at the soldiers, who indiscriminately fired live and rubber-coated bullets, stun grenades and gas canisters at the protestors and the vehicles parked near the entrance. At the time, Haitham Ibrahim Tamimi (44), was carrying his two-and-a-half-year-old child, Mohammad, in front of their house, which is only 50 meters away from an IOF military site at the entrance. Tamimi while carrying his son went to his gray Skoda car that was parked near the house adjacent to the street near the military watchtower to keep it away from the scene. As soon as he reached his car, put his son in the backseat, and started reversing his car, IOF opened fire at the car, wounding him with a live bullet in the shoulder and his son with another bullet in the right side of his head.
IOF’s shooting also resulted in the injury of three other Palestinians, including a woman who was in front of her house near the scene.
Tamimi said to PCHR’s fieldworker that:
“I started the car when I immediately heard 2 gunshots directly fired at the vehicle. I drove the car on reverse only two or three meters to flee from the shooting and clashes, when I heard 5-6 gunshots. I did not feel that I got injured, but looked back at my son, Mohammad, to see him wounded and his face full-blooded. I lost my mind and started screaming, so people started to gather calling for an ambulance. A civilian car belonging to one of my relatives arrived, and drove us to the village’s main entrance, where the Israeli soldiers tried to attack the vehicle and prevent it from moving. When the soldiers noticed that my son, Mohammad, was injured in the head, they brought an Israeli ambulance and then a helicopter arrived and took my son while my relative’s car drove me to the Istishari Hospital in Ramallah, where it was found out that I sustained a bullet wound in the shoulder. Later, I learned that Mohammad was taken to Tel Hashomer Hospital in Israel, where he underwent several surgeries but was pronounced dead at noon on Monday 05 June 2022. His body was referred in the evening to the Palestine Medical Complex in Ramallah.”
PCHR reiterates its calls on the international community to take an immediate action to stop the Israeli crimes and double standards when applying the international law, and urges in particular the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to take serious action in the situation of Palestine.
PCHR demands the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention fulfil their obligations as per Common Article 1 of the Convention, “undertake to respect and to ensure respect for the present Convention in all circumstances,” and their obligations under Article 146 of the same Conventions, i.e., to hold accountable persons accused of committing grave breaches of the Convention.
