Responsibility for killing 14-year-old Palestinian lies primarily with commanders who ordered armed
ambush.
Published:
26 Mar 2014
Findings of BTselem inquiry: Soldiers fired live rounds at youths crossing Separation Barrier to pick wild food plants
Yusef a-Shawamreh next to the Separation Barrier. Photo: 'Abed Al-Hashlamoun, EPA.
Today (26 March 2014) BTselem published its findings on the killing of Yusef a-Shawamreh on the morning of Wednesday 19 March 2014. At around 7:00 A.M. soldiers shot and killed the 14-year-old Palestinian boy of the village of Deir al-Asal al-Foqa, southwest of Hebron as he crossed the Separation Barrier. A-Shawamrehwas shot when he and two friends, Zahi a-Shawamreh, 13, and al-Muntaser Beallah a-Dardun, 18, were going through a wide breach in the Separation Barrier. The two other teenagers were not hit, and soldiers took them in for questioning at the Kiryat Arba police station. They were released later that day.
BTselems investigation indicates that the three youths were crossing the barrier in order to pick gundelia [Arabic: Akub], a thistle-like edible plant annually harvested at this time of year that serves as an important source of income for local residents. The section of the Separation Barrier in this area lies within the West Bank, some 200 meters east of the Green Line, not far from the village homes. The a-Shawamrehs own farmland that is now separated from them by the barrier, and that land is where the three youths were heading to gather plants.
For the past two years there has been a wide breach in that section of the Separation Barrier. The youths went through it and crossed the patrol road on the other side. The two surviving youths told BTselem field researcher Musa Abu Hashhash that they heard three or four shots as they got off the road, fired with no advance warning. A-Shawamreh was hit and one of his companions helped him get back to the road. At that point, soldiers emerged from an ambush several dozen meters away.
The soldiers provided first aid to the wounded a-Shawamreh and apprehended his friends. Although a military base is located a mere two kilometers away, a military ambulance reached the site of the shooting only about 30 minutes later. A-Shawamreh was taken by the ambulance to an Israeli hospital, Soroka Hospital in Beersheba, where he was pronounced dead.
http://www.btselem.org/firearms/20140326_killing_of_yusef_a_shawamreh_deir_al_asal