CCTV footage has emerged appearing to show the moment a 16-year-old Palestinian boy – supposedly unarmed – was gunned down and killed by an Israeli sniper during last week’s Jenin military operation.
The video now appears to rubbish Israel’s claims that only militant combatants were killed in the intensive search for weapons in the Jenin refugee camp.
Abdulrahman Hasan Ahmad Hardan was killed as he stood in front of the al-Amal hospital, which is based outside of the camp. He had been responding to a call from his local mosque to donate blood.
The boy was killed just after midday last week on the second day of Israel’s raid of the camp, which has acted as a hub for Iranian-funded armed Palestinian militancy in recent years.
In the CCTV video, Abdulrahman can be seen, appearing empty-handed, as he looks down the street. The boy slumps to the ground after he appeared to be shot by an Israeli sniper.
In the CCTV video, Abdulrahman (centre) can be seen, clearly empty handed, as he looks down the street
The boy (centre) slumps to the ground after he appeared to be shot by an Israeli sniper
‘My son hadn’t even turned 17 yet,’ Abdulrahman’s mother, Kifaya Hardan told The Times from their family home in the West Bank.
‘The occupation killed him with cold blood, and accused him of taking part in armed confrontations. He wasn’t carrying a gun or anything. He was a child,’ she declared.
The mother told The Times that Abdulrahman had used public transport to get to the hospital to give blood. She said she had no reason to think he would be in danger as the operation was in the refugee camp, which the hospital was not inside.
She then said she cried as she rushed to Jenin after finding out that Abdulrahman had been shot and killed.
‘He was an ordinary boy, he was not a terrorist like they are saying,’ the mother told The Times. ‘Every Palestinian in their eyes is a terrorist, armed or not.’
A friend of the 17-year-old had told the family that he warned Abdulrahman to get out of the way after he said he spotted the Israeli sniper.
The Times tracked down the CCTV footage from a shop adjacent to the hospital which appeared to show he was not armed.
Prior to being shown the video by the publication, the Israeli military tried to claim the boy was carrying an automatic weapon when he was gunned down.
Smoke billows from houses inside a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin on July 3, 2023, after an Israeli strike
Smoke rises during an Israeli military raid of the militant stronghold of Jenin in the occupied West Bank, July 3
Paramedics rush an injured man into a hospital in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin on July 3, 2023, after an Israeli strike. The Israeli army said July 3, 2023 it was striking targets in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin in an ‘extensive counterterrorism effort’
Israel has maintained that all 12 Palestinians killed during the operation were combatants. It has since been revealed that four of the 12 killed were under the age of 18.
However, Israel has hailed its intensive search for weapons last week as a success that destroyed a bomb-making facility and a militant command, and saw them seize stashes of weapons.
The international spokesperson for the Israel Defence Force, Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Hecht, told The Times that Abdulrahman ‘was not a child’. He said the boy was 17, despite his official ID showing that he was 16 when he was killed – three weeks from turning 17. This would have still made him legally a child under Israeli and international law.
The Times reported that Hecht cited a social media post by an Islamic Jihad that claimed he was a fighter. However, Palestinian militant groups have regularly claimed any deaths of Palestinians as being that of martyrs.
The spokesperson claimed he had been armed with ‘automatic rifle’.
After being shown the video, The Times said the Israeli Defence Force were unable to provide them with a comment.
Some militant groups brought banners to the family’s home to celebrate him as a martyr, where the boy’s family expressed their displeasure and maintained he was not a militant.
View of tyres set on fire on a street after a Palestinian was killed during an Israeli military operation, in Jenin, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank July 3, 2023
Palestinian armed militants fire at Israeli armoured vehicles in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin on July 3, 2023
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank July 3, 2023
It comes as Israeli troops shot and killed an alleged Palestinian gunman during new unrest in the West Bank Monday, as a wave of violence in the occupied territory showed no signs of slowing.
The Israeli military said troops stopped a motorist in Deir Nidham, a town west of Ramallah, to question him. It said the man got out of his car, threw a grenade and fired shots toward soldiers, who then opened fire.
The Palestinian Health Ministry confirmed that a 33-year-old man had been killed, but gave no further details.
The operation in the Jenin refugee camp has now been followed by more bloodshed, including a shooting by a Palestinian assailant that killed an Israeli soldier. A Israeli military raid killed two militants, while a third Palestinian was killed during a demonstration later in the day in the central West Bank.
Israel has been conducting stepped-up raids into Palestinian areas since the spring of 2022 in response to a spate of Palestinian attacks. The violence has intensified this year, driving up the death toll on both sides. More than 150 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since the start of the year, while at least 26 people have been killed in Palestinian attacks against Israelis.
Israel says most of those killed have been militants. But stone-throwing youths protesting the incursions and others not involved in the confrontations also have been killed.
Israel captured the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war, areas the Palestinians want for their hoped-for independent state.
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