Ramallah, September 12, 2024—An Israeli drone-fired missile struck and killed a 17-year-old Palestinian boy in Tubas yesterday.
Tawalbeh Mahmoud Jamil Bisharat, 17, was struck by an Israeli drone-fired missile around 4:50 a.m. on September 11 near Al-Tawhid Mosque in the center of Tubas city in the northern occupied West Bank, according to documentation collected by DCIP. Tawalbeh allegedly threw a homemade explosive device toward a heavily armored Israeli military vehicle alongside four Palestinian youth prior to the drone strike. Tawalbeh sustained shrapnel injuries and severe burns all over his body.
“As Israeli forces bomb and starve Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip, they are targeting children in the occupied West Bank with lethal force,” said Ayed Abu Eqtaish, accountability program director at DCIP. “Years of systemic impunity has created a situation where Israeli forces kill Palestinian children without limit or consequence.”
The child and others were transferred by ambulances to Tubas Turkish Governmental Hospital, where they were delayed by Israeli forces in order to search and confirm the death of all the injured, after which entry to the hospital was permitted, where they were pronounced dead on arrival.
Israeli forces accompanied by military bulldozers and aircrafts entered Tubas city from the Atouf gate and Tayasir military checkpoint around 3 a.m. on September 11. The incursion is still ongoing. Military vehicles patrolled the streets and neighborhoods of Tubas and besieged the Tubas Turkish Governmental Hospital amid armed confrontations.
Israeli forces obstructed Palestinian ambulances and medical crews, stopping and searching them, while reconnaissance aircraft flew overhead, and a curfew was imposed. As a result of the incursion, schools were suspended in Tubas city and several neighboring villages.
Israeli forces accompanied by military bulldozers and aircrafts entered Al-Far'a refugee camp, south of Tubas city around 12:30 a.m. on September 12. They re-destroyed roads and infrastructure previously damaged in earlier raids, during which they killed two Palestinian brothers. Confrontations erupted between Palestinian armed men and Israeli forces until Israeli forces withdrew from the camp around 7 a.m. this morning, resulting in the killing of a Palestinian adult and injuring and detaining others.
Israeli forces and settlers have killed 78 Palestinian children in the occupied West Bank in 2024, including two United States citizens, according to documentation collected by DCIP.
159 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.
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.
