Over 40 Palestinian Children Killed in Israeli Atrocity in 5 Months
KABUL: (MEP) The Defense for Children International’s Palestine branch (DCIP) announced Saturday that a total of 41 Palestinian children have been killed in Israeli aggression in the occupied territories in the past five months.
31 Palestinians below the age of 18 who were accused by Israeli forces of carrying out knife or gun attacks, as well as other youths shot dead during clashes, according to the source.
Meanwhile, Ma’an News Agency reported, a 2-year-old toddler was killed along with her pregnant mother when their home was targeted by an Israeli airstrike in the besieged Gaza Strip.
Bodies of two of the children are still being held by Tel Aviv authorities, according to DCIP’s statement, which further insisted that Israeli officials have not opened “full and transparent investigations” into any of the killings, and reportedly rejected several autopsy requests by families of the victims.
DCIP also censured the Israeli regime’s indiscriminate “shoot-to-kill” policy against Palestinian children saying, “International law requires that intentional lethal force be used only when absolutely unavoidable.”
DCIP has launched probes into death of those killed by Israeli forces, including 14-year-old Haitham Ismail al-Baw, who was shot dead on February 5 after army officers alleged that he was throwing Molotov cocktails at passing vehicles on route 60.
Haitham’s cousin, Wajdi, who was with him at the time he was killed, told DCIP that they were not throwing stones or any other objects at the time he was shot.
Palestinian physicians who examined Haitham’s body later that day stated that one of the bullets struck his back, pierced through his lungs and chest, and exited from his mouth, killing him instantly.
Wajdi further told DCIP that Israeli forces arrested him after killing Haitham and took him to an interrogation center where he faced physical abuse.
