Briefing Paper September 2019 (21)
70 bullet fragments in brain of Palestinian child ISM 13/7/19
Israeli soldiers shot a Palestinian child in the head with live ammunition at close range at around 3pm today during a protest against settlement expansion in the town of Kafr Qaddum, northern West Bank. Abdul Rahman Yasser Shteiwi, 10, was rushed to Rafidia hospital in Nablus and was operated on immediately. The leader of the popular resistance committee in Kafr Qaddum, Murad Shtaiwi, told ISM that doctors found over 70 bullet fragments lodged in the child’s brain. An X-ray scan of Abdul’s skull appears to show dozens of metal pieces throughout his brain. The 10-year-old is in a critical condition, although doctors managed to stop the bleeding a few hours after he was admitted.
The Israeli army has claimed that no live ammunition was used against protesters; however the doctors treating Abdul said that the bullet fragments in his brain are from a live round. ISM activists also found a 5.56 bullet case on the ground where protesters had been standing some 15 minutes before. The case was hot to the touch suggesting it had been fired that afternoon. Dozens more bullet cases were also found by villagers following the protest.
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Spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Rupert Colville, called on the Israeli authorities to conduct a thorough, effective, impartial and independent investigation into the Israeli forces’ shooting of nine-year-old Palestinian child Abdul Rahman Shteiwi on 12 July, and to make sure that those responsible for any wrongdoing are held accountable. “We are very concerned by the critical condition of a nine-year-old Palestinian child, Abdul Rahman Shteiwi, after he was shot in the head by the Israeli Security Forces (ISF) on 12 July, in what appears to have been an example of excessive use of force.” The incident occurred during a weekly protest in the village of Kafr Qaddum, near Nablus. While protesters were burning tires and throwing stones at the ISF, Israeli soldiers — after initially responding with rubber bullets and stun grenades – reportedly resorted to using live ammunition, without apparent reason to justify the move to use of lethal force, said the spokesman in a press briefing note. According to several credible sources, this nine-year-old child, Abdul Rahman, was not taking an active part in the protest. He was reportedly over 100 metres away from the clashes, and manifestly did not present an imminent physical threat to Israeli forces.
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