Israeli troops yesterday shot dead a 12-year-old Palestinian boy during a protest against Israel's separation barrier in the occupied West Bank, Palestinian medical sources said. Hammad Hossam Moussa was hit in the head by a live bullet fired by Israeli soldiers during a demonstration in the village of Nilin, said Salah Al Khawaja, a member of Nilin's Committee Against the Wall. Moussa died of his wounds while being transported to hospital in an ambulance shortly afterwards, medical sources said.
According to Mr Khawaja, soldiers fired live rounds towards a group of protesters who ran into Nilin after the army dispersed demonstrators outside the village using rubber-coated bullets. "Protesters arrived at the wall's construction site outside the village and the soldiers started to open fire with rubber bullets and tear gas. This pushed the protesters back into the village where the boy was hit by a live bullet," Mr Khawaja said.
Fifteen people were lightly injured by rubber-coated bullets during yesterday's demonstration in Nilin, which has in recent months become a site of regular violent demonstrations against the controversial separation barrier. A military spokeswoman in Tel Aviv said that the army was carrying out a "serious inquiry" into the incident with "concerned officials on the Palestinian side." She added that Israeli military personnel had conducted a medical examination after the shooting in concert with Palestinian medics.
Earlier this month, demonstrators in Nilin and other locations marked four years since the International Court of Justice issued a non-binding resolution calling for parts of the barrier inside the West Bank to be torn down and for a halt to construction there. Israel has ignored the ruling, as well as a similar order by its own High Court that nullified three sections of the wall, including one that runs near Bilin, a town near Nilin that has held weekly protests for more than two years.
*AFP