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Urgent campaigns / Urgent Interventions / Israel / 2011 / January

Israel: Israel/OPT: Shooting of a 17 year-old boy in the Gaza strip by Israeli soldiers

Case ISR 060111.CC

CHILD CONCERN

Shooting of a 17 year-old boy in the Gaza strip by Israeli soldiers

 

The International Secretariat of the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) requests your URGENT intervention in the following situation in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT).

 

Brief description of the situation

 

The International Secretariat of OMCT has been informed by Defence for Children International -Palestine section (hereafter DCI-Palestine), a member organisation of OMCT SOS-Torture Network, about the shooting of 17 year-old Hatem S.

 

According to the information received, on 23rd December 2010, Hatem S. and his cousin Moamen (16 years old) took their donkey cart and went to farmland north of Beit Lahiya. They usually visit these farms two or three times a week to buy vegetables and fruits in order to sell them later at the market in the Jabalia refugee camp where they live with their families. It was around 8:00 am when they arrived at a farm situated about 800 metres from the border fence where they had planned to buy strawberries.

 

As reported by the same source, Hatem was looking for a place to tie the donkey when he started hearing gunshots coming from the border. He called out for his cousin who was negotiating the price of the strawberries with the farmer to come back so they could leave rapidly. Hatem got onto the cart and was heading towards a strawberry greenhouse when he heard more gunshots. Reportedly, he had driven 10 metres went he felt something hitting him on the back of his head. Feeling dizzy, he laid back on the cart. He then touched his head and, when he saw his hand covered in blood, he realized that he had been shot.

 

According to the same information, Hatem was then helped by his cousin into the farmer's car and was driven to Kamal Odwan Hospital. The doctors said that a shrapnel from a bullet was embedded in his skull and that it was safer not to remove it. Hatem was discharged from hospital three days after he was shot.

 

When visited by DCI-Palestine fieldworkers, Hatem was in a stable situation but had a headache and felt nauseous and dizzy. The shrapnel is still lodged in his head, which makes Hatem stressed and afraid. The doctors have told him that if the shrapnel does not come out naturally by 16 January 2011, he will need to have an operation.

 

Like hundreds of similar cases of human rights violations by Israeli forces, Hatem has not lodged a complaint because practice shows that complaints very hardly lead to the punishment of those responsible or to the compensation of the victims.

 

Background information

 

After the war with Israel in January 2009, Gaza needs to be rebuilt. However, Israel put a drastic limit on the quantity of truckloads of construction material that can enter the zone, which provoke a strong shortage of construction material and prevent an effective reconstruction of the area. This situation resulted in hundreds of men and boys scavenging for building gravel amongst the destroyed buildings close to the border fence with the idea of generating some income to help support their families.

 

In May 2009, the Israeli air force dropped thousands of pamphlets over different parts of Gaza, indicating that anyone approaching the border within 300 metres was endangering his or her life. Although Israel stated intention is to prevent attacks from Palestinian armed factions, this clearly goes into the framework of the gradually expanded restrictions on access to land in the Gaza side of the border over the past 10 years. As reported by a UN study[1], these restrictions have had a devastating impact on the physical security and livelihoods of around 180'000 people.

 

DCI-Palestine documented 23 cases of children shot whilst collecting building material, grazing goats or buying fruits, between 26 March and 23 December 2010, near the border fence between the Gaza Strip and Israel. Reports also indicates that Israeli soldiers fire warning shots to scare workers away from the border, or target workers' legs or kill their donkeys. In 16 out of the 23 cases, the children estimate that they were on, or outside the 300 metres exclusion zone.

 

According to the UN study, between January 2009 and August 2010 in the arbitrary live fire zone adjacent to the border with Israel, at least 22 Palestinian civilians in Gaza have been killed, 6 of them were children, and 146 were injured, among which there were at least 27 children.

 

Actions requested

 

Please write to the authorities in Israel urging them to:

 

i.                     Guarantee that adequate care and compensation is awarded to Hatem S. for the violation of his human rights;

ii.                   Carry out a prompt, effective, thorough, independent and impartial investigation into the event, the result of which must be made public, in order to bring those responsible before a competent, independent and impartial tribunal and apply penal, civil and/or administrative sanctions as provided by the law;

iii.                  Put an immediate end to the practice of targeting unarmed individuals, including children in the buffer zone of the border between Israel and Gaza, as the targeting of civilians is absolutely prohibited under international law regardless of the circumstances;

iv.                 At all time ensure strict respect for international human rights and humanitarian law in the exercise of its jurisdiction, including in connection with military operations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

 

Addresses

Ø      Mr. Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister, Office of the Prime Minister, 3, Kaplan Street, PO Box 187, Kiryat Ben-Gurion, Jerusalem, Israel, Fax: +972- 2-651 2631, Email: pm_eng@pmo.gov.il

 

Ø      Mr. Menachem Mazuz, Attorney General, Fax: + 972 2 627 4481; + 972 2 628 5438; +972 2 530 3367

 

Ø      Permanent Mission of Israel to the United Nations Office and Specialized Institutions in Geneva, Avenue de la Paix 1-3, 1202 Geneva, Fax: +41 22 716 05 55, Email: mission-israel@geneva.mfa.gov.il

 

Please also write to the embassies of Israel in your respective country.

 

***

Geneva, 06 January 2011

 

Kindly inform us of any action undertaken quoting the code of this appeal in your reply.



[1] Between the fence and a hard place, United Nations, Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, occupied Palestinian territory, August 2010.

Properties

Date: January 6, 2011
Activity: Rights of the Child, Urgent campaigns
Type: Urgent Interventions
Country: Israel
Subjects: Rights of the child

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