A small Palestinian child murdered by Israel: who protects the children of Palestine?
The village of Nabi Saleh, in occupied Palestine, mourns the tragic, unbearable disappearance of a little boy of two and a half years. Innocence personified, Mohammed Tamimi, Ahed Tamimi’s little cousin, was shot in the head on Thursday, June 1, while he was in front of his house, in the car with his father.
A bullet in the head fired by a soldier of the Israeli occupation army. His father was also hit by the occupier’s bullets. Three days later, this little child, who was nicknamed Hamoudi, died in the hospital.
The first reaction of the Israeli occupation army was to deny any responsibility and to claim that the child and his father had been hit by Palestinian fire allegedly aimed at the guard tower built by the occupier at the entrance from the village. A new version recognized the fire of the army of occupation but pretending that it was a mistake of identification during fire of return. A supposed response to imaginary shots that no one in the village had heard.
Once again the resistant village of Nabi Saleh is struck by the barbarism of an occupying army whose soldiers have repeatedly received a license to kill and the guarantee of impunity. Little Hamoudi is the 10th Palestinian murdered in the village.
We remember that Ahed Tamimi, her older cousin, had been sentenced to 8 months in prison for having slapped an Israeli soldier who had broken into her home. (see or review our video below, at the end of the press release)
So that the ignoble is at its height, the occupying army entered the village during the funeral of little Hamoudi and attacked the inhabitants who threw stones at them : shots, tear gas and rifle butts concluded the funeral of this toddler. Nariman Tamimi, Ahed’s mother, suffered a broken nose and had to be hospitalized. Maher Tamimi, another member of the family, had to undergo emergency surgery after being hit by live ammunition.
The occupier respects neither the living nor the dead: we remember what happened to the coffin of journalist Shirine Abou Akleh just over a year ago.
Will the assassin of little Hamoudi only be accountable for having killed a two and a half year old child with a bullet in the head? No one in Israel, neither the state, nor the rulers, nor the soldiers, nor the settlers are accountable for the daily violations of human rights and international law against the Palestinian people. Hamoudi’s parents are asking for justice, they will go to the International Criminal Court.
Do Palestinian Lives Matter? 160 have been murdered since the beginning of the year by soldiers or settlers! Do the lives of the children of Palestine matter? Little Mohammed Hamoudi is the 28th Palestinian child murdered since the beginning of the year by an army of assassins!
The AFPS would like to express its revolt and its full solidarity with the Tamimi family, who have come to France on several occasions to testify, and with the village of Nabi Saleh, which has never resigned itself to seeing its land occupied and confiscated and who pays an extremely heavy price. The Palestinian people are in mourning, we are with them.
Against the barbarity of a colonial occupation now led by openly fascist ministers, it is urgent to protect the Palestinian people. We ask the President of the Republic and the French government to firmly condemn these new acts of barbarism, and to commit themselves concretely to the path of international protection of the Palestinian people. It is time to put an end to the impunity of the State of Israel and to take action.
France Palestine Solidarity Association (AFPS)
It was five years ago, on a fateful December 15, 2017, 17-year-old Ahed Tamimi addressed the world outside her home in Nabi Saleh, moments after slapping an Israeli soldier and, through he, the frenzied, cruel colonialism of Israel. She was then greatly shaken by a terrible tragedy, one more: the same day, an Israeli soldier had coldly shot her 14-year-old cousin, Mohammed, seriously injuring him in the head. A few weeks later, she was torn away from her family, at home, at the twilight dawn, that of the most pitiless oppression.
