HRW: Spike in Israeli killings of Palestinian children in West Bank

Occupied West Bank (QNN)- The Israeli military and border police forces are killing Palestinian children with virtually no recourse for accountability, Human Rights Watch said in a new report issued on Monday.

Israeli forces should end the routine unlawful use of lethal force against Palestinians, including children. Israel’s allies should increase pressure to end the practice, said the group in its report.

The report also pointed out that the UN Secretary-General “should list Israel’s armed forces in his annual report on grave violations against children in armed conflict for 2023 as responsible for the violation of killing and maiming Palestinian children,” saying between 2015 and 2022, the UN attributed over 8,700 child casualties to Israeli forces, yet ‘Israel’ has never been listed.

Last year, HRW said, was the deadliest year for Palestinian children in the West Bank in 15 years, and 2023 is on track to meet or exceed 2022 levels. According to the report, Israeli forces had killed at least 34 Palestinian children in the occupied West Bank as of August 22.

“Israeli forces are gunning down Palestinian children living under occupation with increasing frequency,” said Bill Van Esveld, associate children’s rights director at Human Rights Watch. “Unless Israel’s allies, particularly the United States, pressure Israel to change course, more Palestinian children will be killed.”

Human Rights Watch investigated four fatal shootings of Palestinian children by Israeli forces between November 2022 and March 2023. The four children are Adam Ayyad, Wadea Abu Ramuz, Mahmoud al-Sadi, and Mohammed al-Sleem.

In the other cases investigated, the occupation forces killed boys after they had joined other youths confronting Israeli forces with stones, Molotov cocktails, or fireworks, read the report.

The report added that Israeli forces fired repeatedly at chest-level, hitting multiple children, and killed children in situations where they do not appear to have been posing a threat of grievous injury or death, which is the standard for the use of lethal force by law enforcement officers under international norms.

“That would make these killings unlawful,” noted the report.

The report also said the Israeli occupation authorities have used excessive force against Palestinians in policing situations for decades., adding that the occupation has routinely failed to hold their forces accountable when they kill Palestinians, including children, in circumstances in which the use of lethal force was not justified under international norms.

From 2017 to 2021, fewer than one percent of complaints of violations by Israeli military forces against Palestinians, including killings and other abuses, resulted in indictments, the Israeli rights group Yesh Din reported.

The report called members of the US House of Representatives to support the Defending the Human Rights of Palestinian Children and Families Living Under Israeli Occupation Act (H.R. 2590), which would prohibit US funding to ‘Israel’ from being unlawfully used for the military detention and abuse of Palestinian children, destruction of Palestinian property, and expropriation of land for settlements.

It also called the foreign governments, such as the US which pledged $3.8 billion in military aid to Israel in 2023, to “condition assistance on Israel taking concrete and verifiable steps toward ending their serious abuses, including the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution and the regular use of lethal force against Palestinians, including children, that violate international standards, and to investigate past abuses.”

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