Family of slain Palestinian teenager to sue Israeli officials

Rasa - The family of a 17-year-old Palestinian teenager, who was recently killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank, has decided to take legal action against the regime, saying the perpetrators of such indiscriminate crimes must be brought to justice.

News ID: 426689

Date: 20 January 2017 - 21:58

RNA - “We want justice, not just for Qusay [al-Amour], but for all the Palestinian children hurt by Israel, the child prisoners, the orphans whose fathers were killed and the child martyrs too,” said his mother Fatima, the Middle East Eye news portal reported.

“We do not just want justice because he was killed, we want justice for how he was killed. He was my child and they executed him in a field like an animal, dragged his body away and ripped off his clothes,” she said.

Qusay was shot dead on Tuesday during clashes in a village called Tuqu in the southern occupied West Bank district of Bethlehem.

According to a doctor at the hospital where Qusay’s body was taken, the teen had been shot four times, in the heart, chest, hip and leg.

The BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian and Refugee Rights described the incident as an “extrajudicial killing.”

According to the BADIL, the Israeli forces have violated the international law which stipulates that the use of “lethal force… must always be proportional and necessary…[and] only used as a measure of last resort.”

The Israeli authorities are not planning to conduct an investigation into the matter, the BADIL said.

The Israeli military has issued a statement saying the forces reacted to a “violent riot” of hundreds of Palestinians throwing rocks.

However, several witnesses at the scene said fewer than a dozen youths were present at the protest.

Amour is the fourth Palestinian to have been killed by the Israelis since the start of this year.

More than 270 Palestinians have lost their lives at the hands of Israeli forces since the escalation of tensions in early October 2015. The new wave of clashes erupted when Israel imposed restrictions on the entry of Palestinian worshipers into the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in East Jerusalem al-Quds in August 2015.

The Palestinians are protesting a covert plan by Israel to change the status quo of al-Aqsa Mosque, a highly-revered place for Muslims around the world.

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