Israel/Palestine

Jefferson23

(30,099 posts) Sun Nov 9, 2014, 07:26 PM Nov 2014

No one to be held responsible for killing 14-year-old Palestinian boy out picking edible plants

In March 2014, soldiers shot and killed Yusef a-Shawamreh, a 14-year-old Palestinian boy, as he went through a gap in the Separation Barrier in order to pick edible plants to help provide for his family. B’Tselem’s investigation indicates that he was shot in broad daylight, with no advance warning and although he posed no danger. Details of the incident

On 10 July 2014, roughly four months after the incident took place, Military Advocate for Operational Matters Lt. Col. Ronen Hirsch notified B’Tselem that the Military Advocate General (MAG) had decided to close the investigation without serving any indictments as there was “no suspicion that the open-fire regulations had been breached nor that any military personnel were involved in criminal action”. In the letter, Lt. Col. Hirsch wrote that four soldiers who had stationed an ambush spotted three Palestinians crossing the Separation Barrier after having sabotaged it. The soldiers then carried out suspect-arrest procedure, ending with one soldier shooting at the lower part of a-Shawamreh’s leg. However, the shot hit a-Shawamreh in the waist, killing him.

On 14 July 2014, B’Tselem wrote to the Military Police Investigation Unit (MPIU) and requested a copy of the investigation file, in order to consider appealing the decision to close the case without filing charges.

At present, although B’Tselem has not yet received the copy of the file, it would seem that the MPIU investigation and the MAG’s decision relied only upon examining the conduct of the soldiers during the incident itself. They examined neither the orders the soldiers were given nor the decision to mount an armed ambush at that spot.

http://www.btselem.org/accountability/20141106_shawamreh_investigation_file_closed