His mother spent the morning baking a cake and preparing Ali’s favourite dish for a evening birthday celebration with Ali’s friends.
As it was a Friday, people gathered in the centre of al-Mughayyir, their West Bank village, for a regular weekly protest against their village land being stolen by settlers.
As usual, Israeli soldiers fired tear gas and sound bombs at protesters. Reportedly, at least four people were injured with rubber-coated steel bullets.
After about 3 hours, an Israeli sniper shot Ali in the abdomen, “from a distance of around 160 meters, we estimate”, his father said. The father believes that his son was targeted by an Israeli sniper, who “wanted to kill.”
“The people who witnessed it said that the second Ali fell to the ground, the Israeli soldiers retreated and the confrontations were finished. That’s what they [the soldiers] wanted, they just wanted to kill someone and go home.”
The boy was take by car to a nearby villge and then by ambulance to a hospital in Ramallah, some 30 kilometres away. But doctors were unable to safe him.
Another Palestinian child was killed by an Israeli soldier.
Not a big deal, not newsworthy except in a few alternative media outlets. I found this story, written by Yumna Patel on the mondoweiss.net website.
There will be no follow-up. The Israeli forces know they can kill with impunity.
According to Defense for Children International-Palestine (DCIP), Ali is the fifth Palestinian child to be killed with live ammunition at the hands of Israeli forces this year. He is the second minor to be killed in the village of al-Mughayyir since 2018, when 16-year-old Laith Abu Naim was shot and killed after he threw a stone at an Israeli military jeep.
Why is the West so silent? Why is there no justice when the victims are Palestinians?
Maybe it is something to do with an issue we here in NZ are starting to discuss, the underlying concept of white supremacy, some people’s lives are of more worth than the lives of others’.
Israelis see themselves, and portray themselves, as Europeans. Geograpically Israel is physically in the Middle East, but mentally in Europe.
The concept of European superiority is part of our historical cultural heritage.
Churchill speaking to the Peel Commission of Inquiry of 1937 was unapologetic about the violence of British troops , Zionist auxiliaries and Royal ‘air force bombers in crushing a Palestinian uprising.
” I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher grade race, a more worldly-wise race, to put it that way, has come in and taken their place.”
Maybe we are all unconsciously indoctrinated with what the Palestinian-American intellectual Edward Said described as ‘orientalism’, a determination not to know anything about the other’s, history, tradition and culture.
There clearly is a reluctance on the part of Western media , political, and religious elite to criticize the Israeli regime even when children are shot by skilled Israeli snipers using the latest high-tech weaponry. Is it fear of being targeted by Zionist supporters?
Where is humanity? How many more Palestinian parents will have to grieve as Ali’s do?
“He was our most beloved boy, and brought joy to us and everyone around him.”
Lois Griffiths is a human rights activist
Many children have been killed on both sides in this ongoing conflict but Griffiths typically focuses on only one side and provides no context. First the Jews then Israel have been the target of ongoing hatred,incitement and violence by the Arabs for far too long, with their stated intention of genocide of all Israelis. There has been no evidence that an Israeli soldier even shot this boy and what kind of parents allow their son to attend a regular riot that involves throwing rocks, other missiles, and rolling burning tyres at human targets? All too often Palestinians have been found guilty of putting their kids in the line of fire for the ‘Pallywood shot’. Here is a shocking example.
http://www.thetower.org/3715-watch-palestinian-urges-idf-to-shoot-his-son-on-camera-soldier-and-boy-high-five-instead/
The killing and imprisonment of young children are a direct result of the illegal occupation of Palestinian land, destruction of their homes and livelihood for the last seventy years. Palestinians are resisting an existential threat of being exterminated. Under international law, the Nuremberg principles, based on the resistance movements in NAZI occupied Europe, people living under occupation have an innate right to resist and fight back regardless they be stones or other means. In fact Churchill said something similar when Hitler threatened to invade Britain.
Hey Gaby. How exactly is this at all relevant. Are you saying that Israeli soldiers are compelled to shoot toddlers with rocks! Or that this father who you say is asking soldiers to shoot his child some how deserves his child to be shot? Palestinians live in fear of being shot in the same way that black Americans live in fear of being shot in any confrontatation with police. You finding these actions by a Palestinian father somehow justifying the shooting of Palestinian minors is just another demonstration of a sick mind. You start by saying that many children have been killed on both sides but because it is so difficult to find an example of an Israeli child being killed and almost impossible to find the deliberate targeting of any Israeli non Palestinian child, this very tragic video demonstrating the terrible imbalance in power between Palestinians and the IDF is what you wave as justification?? One more demonstration of the sickness that is Zionism.
It’s Palestinian children who are being killed or deliberately maimed , or arrested in the middle of the night, etc on a regularly basis. The violence committed against Palestinian children is obscene.
This incident has been written about by Tamara Nassar too on electronic intifada .
Ali was observing a regular protest against their land being stolen. The only violence was from heavily armed IDF.
Are you spraying again Gaby? Perhaps you could provide a translated transcript that has its accuracy verified to support your interpretation of the clip. On the face of it, one readily observes a non-confrontational flag waving celebration of nationality, reinforced by the child and a non-threatening IDF soldier hand clapping in the nature of a friendly high-5. Could you also explain the origin of the prejudicial and obscene sounding term ‘Pallywood shot’. To assist in providing credibility in support of the statement, “Many children have been killed on both sides in this ongoing conflict …..” it would be useful if you provided actual Israeli death numbers so they can be compared with the sorts of statistics that are regularly provided in respect of Palestinian killings. Finally, while Griffiths, because of her human rights activism, reasonably focuses on Palestinian fatalities, she, unlike yourself does provide contexts. Also, unlike you, she never excuses or’celebrates’ the deaths of Israeli children.
Please up your game – your pathetic contributions are very tiresome and frankly, a waste of space.
“Israelis see themselves and portray themselves as Europeans” With this one sentence Griffiths betrays her false narrative for Israel in a feeble attempt to invoke the old ‘colonialist’ slur. This is nonsense. Why would Jews/israelis want to identify with the continent where 22 nations are soaked with the blood of the Holocaust? Half of all Israelis are Mizrahi (Middle Eastern) Jews and their descendants. Over 80% of Israelis are sabras, i.e. born there. The seismic changes taking place, like the Abraham Accords, are cementing Israel’s status as a Middle Eastern powerhouse, while violent, rejectionist Palestinians are sidelined. Attempts to abort the true facts to score points against Israel will always fail.
Eurovision..European sports competitions ..etc
Degrading the Arabic language..
I thought I deleted the incomplete comment above. I was starting to write something when the phone rang. I was starting to list examples of the Israelis contempt for Palestinians. A important one is that Israeli schools do not teach Palestinian poetry. The Israeli regime want to obliterate knowledge of Palestinian history, traditions and culture.
Anyway the important point my article was trying to make is the need to question why the Israelis get away with murdering Palestinian youths. Will anyone in the West ever speak out?
The answer to this comes from Phil Weiss of mondoweiss.net who writes
“Israel is going to keep on killing Palestinian boys, until U.S. Jews endorse BDS “
Comments are closed.