Israeli soldiers shot a Palestinian child in the face while she played on the balcony of her family home in the West Bank, this month. The case exemplifies the growing and increasingly lawless violence meted out across the West Bank by Israeli occupation forces.
On Friday September 25, seven-year-old Maram Abed al-Latif al-Qaddumi was standing on the balcony of her family home in Kafr Qaddoum, when Israeli soldiers shot her in the face with a rubber-coated bullet. Maram is not the child of a suspected terrorist (and would not be “fair game” even if she were), she is the daughter of Nablus Police Chief Colonel Abdul-Latif al-Qaddoumi.
Her father was home when the bullets were fired at his daughter and raced to his car with the girl in his arms, planning to take her to hospital for treatment. But as he drove from the house, Israeli forces opened fire on the vehicle. The pair were later taken to the Rafidia Governmental Hospital in Nablus with head injuries, where they remain in a stable condition.
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The shooting comes amid a wave of Israeli reprisals against the town for its continued non-violent protests against the expansion of the Apartheid Wall which encircles and imprisons Palestinians, while cutting them off from their farms, workplaces and neighboring towns.
Israel has injured an average 39 Palestinian civilians every week of 2015, the vast majority of them injured at non-violent protests. Israeli soldiers have repeatedly deployed live fire on peaceful protesters. Amid growing international criticism, Israel has taken an astonishing approach to avoid future condemnation. Instead of ceasing to kill and injure unarmed civilians, they have instead opted to legalize such shootings.
“The Israel Police will be expanding their use of firearms against stone-throwers in the south of the country, as authorities struggle to contend with the rise of riots and violence,” Israeli daily Haaretz reported Monday.
“Legal and police sources say that the decisions on how to deal with stone-throwers in Jerusalem will also be applied to rioters in the south, particularly those who throw stones at vehicles,” it adds.
But as Electronic Intifada points out, what Israel describes as “riots,” is all too often a peaceful protest against the illegal occupation and land confiscation in the West Bank.
To understand how the majority of Israeli citizens react to such shootings, we can look at the reaction to another shooting recently:
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Electronic Intifada reports:
The status accompanying it says: “This is the only way it will work. You throw a rock? You get a bullet. Share it, friends!”
The post has been shared more than 3,000 times and hundreds of comments express sadistic joy at the sight of soldiers shooting a Palestinian who has no rights because he lives under military rule.
A common complaint is that the youth was not shot in the head or heart and killed outright.
“I’m proud of our warriors!” declares Angela Vainer. “What fun to see such a video,” writes Maria Kogan.
“Well done!!! Next time, hit the testicles,” suggests Karin Kazav.
Israel is becoming increasingly belligerent and they have been killing Palestinians in cold blood, outside any pretext of lawfulness. Whether a local lawmaker at a peaceful protest, a teenager throwing stones at tanks, a seven-year-old playing on your family balcony, or a toddler sleeping in your bed — you could be killed by an Israeli soldier or civilian with impunity.
There is no safe place for Palestinians in what has become Greater Israel. It is their very existence that so offends the racial supremacist, theocratic state of Israel. Until this rogue state’s backers in the U.S. and the West get on the right side of history, the Palestinians will continue to suffer this cruel and arbitrary punishment for being the “wrong” race, from point of view of their occupiers.
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