A second teenager critically injured by Israeli forces near Nablus has succumbed to his wounds and died. Useid Abed An-Nasser Qadus, 19, was shot in the head by Israeli forces, that were invading Iraq Burin, a West Bank village south of Nablus, on Friday.
Useid’s death follows that of his cousin, Mohammed Qadus, 16, who was shot in the chest with a live bullet while trying to carry Useid to safety.
Mohammed was pronounced dead on arrival after being taken in a private car to a Nablus hospital, after Israeli forces prevented an ambulance from reaching him. Usaid underwent surgery and 12 blood transfusions and remained in critical condition for a brief while before ultimately succumbing to his injuries.
Mohammad’s body had an entry wound in his chest, and Maâan news has shown a photo with an exit wound in his back, which eye witnesses report could only have been caused by live ammunition.
The circumstances of the killings by the Israeli military of the two youth in Iraq Burin yesterday bear worrying similarities with previous cases, in which the IOF had targeted children as part of a general wave of killings.
The wave of killings in 2008/9 started when 10-year-old Ahmed Mousa was killed on July 29, 2008 in Niâlin. Eyewitnesses said that Ahmed was with them at the demonstration against the Apartheid Wall. After the confrontations had ceased, Ahmed was standing with a paramedic and three other youths under the shade of an olive tree when an IOF jeep drove up and stopped. The driver of the jeep, along with another soldier who jumped from the back door, fired their M-16s simultaneously, with the driver shooting a live bullet and the other a rubber coated bullet. Ahmed was shot and killed by the live round, which, entered through his head at the left temple and exited out of the right side of the back of his head.
At the height of the first wave of killings in 2004/5, on May 4, 2005, Jamal Jaber, 15 years old, and Uday Mofeed, 14, were shot during a demonstration, when soldiers chased the two down and shot them with live ammunition. They were evacuated by ambulance but the journey to Ramallah hospital was held up at the Qalandiya checkpoint. By the time the ambulance was allowed through to the hospital, both boys had bled to death.
Stop the Wall fears that, after the arrest of over 100 grassroots activists has not stopped the mobilization, the assassination of Mohammad and Useid may be the beginning of a third wave of killings.