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LIBRARY 
MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA MIDDLE EAST PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY
| AI Index: | November |
Universal children’s day 2002
Israel and the
Occupied Territories and the Palestinian Authority
Killing the Future: Children in the Line of Fire
In the two years since the beginning of the intifada, the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip which broke out in September 2000, more than 250 Palestinian and 72 Israeli children have been killed.
Palestinian children have been killed by Israeli soldiers using excessive and disproportionate lethal force in response to protests, or as a result of shelling and bombardments of residential areas. Others were killed during Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) assassinations of Palestinian activists, or when their homes were demolished. Some died because they were denied access to medical care by the IDF. At least three were killed by armed Israeli settlers.
Israeli children have been killed by Palestinian armed groups, many in suicide bombings. Some have been shot dead by members of Palestinian armed groups or by individual Palestinians inside Israel, and in settlements and on roads in the Occupied Territories.
No judicial investigation is known to have been carried out into any of the killings of children by Israeli soldiers, even in cases where Israeli government officials have stated publicly that investigations would be carried out. The Palestinian Authority, for its part, has failed to take the necessary measures to prevent attacks on Israeli civilians by Palestinian armed groups and to bring to justice those responsible for unlawful killings. All the parties involved in the conflict are disregarding the right to life of the most vulnerable members of the Israeli and Palestinian civilian population.
- Suicide attack carried out in the Sbarro Pizzeria, West Jerusalem
- Riham al-Ward - killed when her school in Jenin was shelled
- Khalil Ibrahim al-Mughrabi - killed by a high-velocity bullet in the head
- Muhammad Ibrahim Hajaj, Ahmed Suleiman Abu Tayah and Ibrahim Reziq Omar - shot dead by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) in the Gaza Strip
- Nine children killed when the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) dropped a one-ton bomb on a densely populated neighbourhood of Gaza city
- Suicide attack on "Dolphinarium" night club in Tel Aviv
- Danielle Shefi - killed by armed attackers
- Avia Malka
- killed by two Palestinians who shot and threw grenades at cars and pedestrians
in Netanya
Take action: Respect for human life must be urgently restored
Suicide attack carried out in the Sbarro Pizzeria, West Jerusalem
On 9 August 2001, a suicide
attack was carried out in the Sbarro Pizzeria, at a busy intersection
in the heart of West Jerusalem. A man walked into the pizzeria during a crowded
lunch hour and detonated a powerful bomb packed with nails, killing 14 civilians,
including seven children, and injuring more than 100. Both the groups Islamic
Jihad and Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.
The attack killed: 16-year-old Michal Raziel and her 15-year-old
long-term friend Malka Roth; the two girls had stopped for
lunch at the pizzeria on their way to Talpiot, to take part in activities of
the youth movement of which they were both members. Five members of the Schijveschuurder
family, from Neria, were killed in the attack and two others were injured: Tzira
and Mordechai Schijveschuurder were killed along with their daughters Ra'aya
and Hemda (ages 14 and two), and their four-year-old son Avraham Yitzhak;
two other daughters were injured. The family had come to spend the day in Jerusalem,
to relax from the tension of the frequent shootings near their home in Neria
settlement in the West Bank. Eight-year-old Tamara Shimashvili
from Jerusalem was killed with her mother, Lily. Yocheved Shoshan,
aged 10, had gone with her mother and her sisters, Rachel and Michal, to have
lunch at the pizzeria. They were seated on the second floor, but Yocheved and
Michal had gone back downstairs, where the explosion occurred, to order another
slice of pizza. Yocheved was killed instantly in the explosion and Michal was
seriously wounded.
Riham al-Ward, a 10-year-old schoolgirl, was killed on 18 October 2001 when her school, the al-Ibrahimiya school in Jenin (a city in the West Bank) was shelled during an Israeli attack and incursion into the city. The tanks started shelling just as children were arriving at the school; the director gathered the children in the yard into a ground-floor classroom. One girl was hit in the doorway of the room and Riham, who turned to help her, was hit in the heart and died before reaching hospital. The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) were initially reported as claiming that there were armed Palestinians operating from the area and were later reported as admitting that they had made a mistake in shelling the school.
Khalil Ibrahim al-Mughrabi - killed by a high-velocity bullet in the head
Khalil Ibrahim al-Mughrabi was playing soccer and flying kites with his friends in a large open space near the border fence at Rafah, on 7 July 2001, when he was killed by a high-velocity bullet in the head. He was just 11 years old. His two friends, Ibrahim Kamel Abu Sussain, age 10, and 13-year-old Suleiman Turki Abu Rijal, were also shot and both sustained serious injuries.The shots came from an Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) post about 800 metres away and according to witnesses there were no disturbances or clashes in the area at that time. The IDF claimed that there had been rioting and throwing of fragmentation grenades in the area, but confidential IDF records showed that this was untrue.
Muhammad Ibrahim Hajaj, Ahmed Suleiman Abu Tayah and Ibrahim Reziq Omar - shot dead by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) in the Gaza Strip
Muhammad Ibrahim Hajaj, Ahmed Suleiman Abu Tayah and Ibrahim Reziq Omar, all 14 years of age, were shot dead and several other children were wounded on 1 November 2000 by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) in the Gaza Strip, in a place which over the past two years has been a regular demonstration site for children who gather to throw stones at IDF tanks and/or at the IDF tower. Muhammad Ibrahim Hajaj was shot in the neck and Ahmed Suleiman Abu Tayah and Ibrahim Reziq Omar were shot in the head and chest. All three died immediately. Several other children were wounded, including two 10-year-olds who were shot in the abdomen and in the right shoulder. According to eyewitnesses and to medical records, the children were fired on with live ammunition from a distance of about 150 metres.Nine children killed when the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) dropped a one-ton bomb on a densely populated neighbourhood of Gaza city
Just before midnight on 22 July 2002, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) dropped a one-ton bomb on a densely populated neighbourhood of Gaza city. Nine children, most of them under the age of 10, were amongst the 17 killed. Dina Matar was just two months old and Ayman Matar 18 months. Muhammad Raed Matar was three, Diana Raed Matar five, Subhi Mahmud al-Hweiti four, Muhammad Mahmud al-Hweiti six, Ala Muhammad Matar 10, Iman Salah Shehada 15 years old. Maryam Matar, 17 years old, was seriously injured in the attack and died on 15 August.
More than 70 other people were wounded. Leading Hamas activist Salah Shehada, who was among those killed, was accused by the Israeli authorities of organizing attacks against Israelis. Given the location of the target, in a densely populated residential area, and the method of attack chosen, the authorities must have known that civilians, including children, would be killed. The following day Israel's Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, called the attack "one of the most successful operations".
Suicide attack on "Dolphinarium" night club in Tel Aviv
On 1 June 2001 a suicide bomber blew himself up among a group of young people waiting to enter the "Dolphinarium" night club in Tel Aviv, killing 21 people, 20 of them civilians, where 12 were aged under 18. About 120 others were wounded.
The ‘Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, claimed responsibility for the attack. By choosing to target such a place, the entrance to a discothèque on a Friday night, the attacker meant to kill and harm as many civilians as possible and must have anticipated that many children would be among the victims.
Most of the victims who were killed in the attack had immigrated to Israel in recent years from the former Soviet Union. They were: Raisa Namirovsky (15), from Netanya and her neighbour and friend Maria Tagilchev (14 years), outside whose school a car bomb had exploded two days earlier; Yevgenia Keren Dorfman, (15 years), who sustained serious brain damage in the explosion and died after 18 days; Katherine Kastanada Talker (15 years) a student from Ramat Gan; 16-year-old Yulia Nelimov, whose 18-year-old sister Yelena was also killed; Irina Nepomneschi, a 16-year-old business administration student from Bat Yam; Anya Kazachkov and her friend Mariana Medvedenko, both aged 16; Marina Berkovski from Tel Aviv, who went to the nightclub to celebrate her 17th birthday; and 16-year-old Aleksei Lupalu, who had immigrated from Ukraine just six months earlier.
Danielle Shefi - killed by armed attackers
On 27 April 2002, three armed men attacked residents of Adora, an Israeli settlement in the West Bank. In the bedroom of one house a gunman killed five-year old Danielle Shefi as she hid under a bed, and wounded her mother Shiri, her brothers Uriel, aged four and Eliad, aged two. Elsewhere in the settlement, they also killed three adults. The Izz-al-Din al-Qassam Brigades (the military wing of Hamas) claimed responsibility for what it described as an "heroic and daring operation".
Avia Malka - killed by two Palestinians who shot and threw grenades at cars and pedestrians in Netanya
Avia Malka, a nine-month-old baby, was killed by two Palestinians who shot and threw grenades at cars and pedestrians in Netanya, Israel, on 9 March 2002. One other person was killed and about 50 people were injured, several of them seriously. The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade claimed responsibility for the attack.
Two teenagers, 16-year-old Shoshana Ben-Yishai and 14-year-old Menashe Regev were both killed on 4 November 2001 when a gunman belonging to Islamic Jihad fired at a commuter bus at the French Hill junction in northern Jerusalem. Forty five people were injured in the attack.
Respect for human life must be urgently restored.
Please write appeals, calling on the Israeli and Palestinian Authorities to...
- act in the best interests of all children, in particular to respect childrens right to life
- ensure that thorough and impartial investigations are promptly carried out into the killing of every child, that the findings of these investigations are made public and that those responsible for such unlawful attacks are brought to justice in fair trials
- instruct all those under their command or influence not to attack children or other civilians under any circumstances and make clear that such attacks will not be tolerated
Addresses
Yasser Arafat
President, Minister of the Interior, of Waqfs and
Religious Affairs, of Education and of Youth and Sport
Palestinian National Authority
Ramallah, West Bank
Palestinian Authority
Ariel Sharon
Prime Minister
Office of the Prime Minister
3 Kaplan Street
P O Box 187
Kiryat Ben-Gurion, Jerusalem 91919
Israel
Brigadier-General Zuheir Manasra
Head of West Bank Preventive Security
Ramallah, West Bank
Palestinian Authority
Benjamin Ben-Eliezer
Minister of Defence
Ministry of Defence
Kaplan Street
Hakirya, Tel Aviv 67659
Israel
For further information see Amnesty International’s report: Israel and the Occupied Territories and the Palestinian Authority: Killing the future: Children in the line of fire (October 2002, AI Index: MDE 02/005/2002).
| AI Index: | November |
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