Ramallah, January 29, 2024—Israeli forces shot and killed a 17-year-old Palestinian boy in the central occupied West Bank today.
Abdulrahman Abdulrahim Suleiman Hamed, 17, was shot in the chest and the waist by Israeli forces around 12 p.m. on January 29 in the Palestinian town of Silwad, northeast of Ramallah, according to documentation collected by Defense for Children International - Palestine. Israeli forces entered Silwad around 10:30 a.m. and began firing tear gas canisters toward Palestinian residents and their homes. Palestinians confronted Israeli forces, and around noon, Abdulrahman left his school, Silwad Martyrs Boys’ Secondary School, to watch the confrontations in the Al-Najjar neighborhood from about 200 meters (656 feet) away. As Israeli forces withdrew from Silwad, they opened fire on Abdulrahman, striking him in the chest and the waist. Abdulrahman was immediately brought to Silwad Hospital, where he was declared dead before his body was transferred to the Palestine Medical Complex in Ramallah.
“Israeli forces forcibly entered Abdulrahman’s neighborhood, violently interrupted his school day, then shot and killed him,” said Ayed Abu Eqtaish, accountability program director at DCIP. “The impunity enjoyed by Israeli soldiers determined to kill Palestinian children is bought and paid for by the Biden administration which refuses to hold Israeli forces to account for carrying out genocide in Gaza.”
95 Palestinian children have been killed in the occupied West Bank since October 7, according to documentation collected by DCIP, when the Israeli military began a full-scale military offensive on the Gaza Strip dubbed Operation Iron Swords.
Israeli forces and settlers have killed 14 Palestinian children in the occupied West Bank in 2024, according to documentation collected by DCIP.
In 2023, Israeli forces and settlers killed at least 121 Palestinian children in the occupied West Bank, according to documentation collected by DCIP. Israeli forces and settlers shot and killed 103 Palestinian children with live ammunition, 13 Palestinian children were killed in drone strikes, four Palestinian children were killed by missiles fired from a U.S.-sourced Apache attack helicopter, and one child was killed in an Israeli warplane airstrike.
Under international law, intentional lethal force is only justified in circumstances where a direct threat to life or of serious injury is present. However, investigations and evidence collected by DCIP regularly suggest that Israeli forces use lethal force against Palestinian children in circumstances that may amount to extrajudicial or wilful killings.
