May 12, 2021: Rashid Mohammad Abu Ara, 16, was killed by Israeli bullets in the village of Aqaba, in the district of Tubas.
Medical sources reported that the 16-year-old Rashid Mohammad Abu Ara, 16, was killed by two bullets – one in the neck and one in the chest – fired by Israeli forces invading the northern entrance of the city of Tubas, near Bethlehem.
Invading Israeli forces were met by Palestinian youth, many of whom threw stones to try to repel the heavily-armed invading soldiers, to keep the soldiers from invading their village. in addition to the shooting of Rashid, another young man was injured after he was run over by a military jeep car in Tubas. Medical sources report that his general health condition is stable, but he suffers from several fractures and bruises.
The killing of Rashid comes in the midst of a rapid, onging escalation of Israeli violence against Palestinian civilians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which began on April 12th, the beginning of the Muslim Holy Month of Ramadan, with increasingly frequent and violent Israeli settler and soldier attacks on Palestinian worshipers.
On Monday, Israel began launching airstrikes against the Gaza Strip when Palestinian factions demanded that Israeli troops withdraw from the East Jerusalem neighborhoods they are currently forcibly annexing. Instead of withdrawing, Israeli military forces launched an all-out assault on the Gaza Strip, killing at least 35 Palestinians, most of them civilians not involved in resistance — 12 of them children.
During the 11-day Israeli assault on Gaza between May 10th and 21st, 2021, 247 Palestinians were killed, including 66 children and 39 women; 1417 wounded, including 277 women and 412 children. 9 Israelis, including 2 children, were killed during the same time period.
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, which documented these attacks, has called upon the international Criminal Court to open an investigation into the occupation’s crimes during this military aggression, and reiterates its call upon the High Contracting Parties to the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention to fulfil their obligations under Article 1; i.e., to respect and ensure respect for the Convention in all circumstances and their obligations under Article 146 to prosecute persons alleged to commit grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention. These grave breaches constitute war crimes under Article 147 of the same Convention and Protocol (I) Additional to the Geneva Conventions regarding the guarantee of Palestinian civilians’ right to protection in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (West Bank, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights).
Rashid was from Aqaba, in the district of Tubas, in the northern West Bank. Source: IMEMC