The Israeli occupation army has shot dead 15-year-old Palestinian boy Yamen Samid Youssef Hamed in the town of Silwad, east of Ramallah, in the occupied central West Bank, according to a statement by the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
According to local accounts, Israeli forces stormed the town, prompting a group of Palestinians to hurl stones at them. The troops responded with live ammunition, tear gas, and stun grenades, fatally shooting the child.
The soldiers reportedly prevented an ambulance from reaching the wounded boy, leaving him bleeding on the ground before later allowing medics to transfer him to Ramallah Governmental Hospital.
Israeli forces and settlers have intensified their assaults across the West Bank during the two years of the war of extermination in Gaza, resulting in the killing of 1,063 Palestinians and the injury of around 10,000 others, in addition to the arrest of over 20,000 people, including 1,600 children.
No security pretext can justify the killing of a 15-year-old child by a regular army. Such an act strikes at the heart of the moral values that should govern the conduct of armed forces in any conflict, foremost among them, respect for human life, particularly the lives of children who are entitled to the highest degree of protection in times of turmoil.
Opening fire on demonstrators or youths throwing stones reflects an excessive and disproportionate use of force, in clear violation of international standards that oblige military forces to adhere to the principles of necessity and proportionality.
Even graver is the act of preventing an ambulance from reaching the injured child and leaving him to bleed on the ground in a behaviour that reveals contempt for human values and constitutes a blatant breach of the Geneva Conventions, which require warring parties to ensure unimpeded medical access.
What occurred in Silwad is yet another episode in a recurring pattern of violations committed against civilians in the West Bank, forming a case of collective punishment, which is unlawful both legally and morally. It paints a bleak picture of impunity and moral decay, where children are killed and their families left to drown in a harsh silence met only with feeble statements of condemnation from the world.
