Ramallah, August 14, 2024—Israeli forces killed a 17-year-old Palestinian boy in the northern occupied West Bank early this morning.
Around 7:20 a.m. today, an Israeli drone-fired missile targeted 17-year-old Mohammad Bashar Hasan Bani Odeh and several young Palestinian men in the Palestinian village of Tammun in the northern occupied West Bank, according to documentation collected by Defense for Children International - Palestine. They were seriously injured and fell to the ground, after which an Israeli military vehicle approached. As Israeli soldiers exited the vehicle, they ordered a nearby ambulance driver to leave at gunpoint. Israeli forces realized that Mohammad and two young men were still alive and proceeded to fatally shoot each of them at point-blank range. After an hour, Israeli forces placed them in a military vehicle and transported them to an unknown location. Israeli authorities confiscated Mohammad’s body alongside the other killed men.
“It was not enough for Israeli forces to critically injure Mohammad in a drone strike in a crowded residential neighborhood,” said Ayed Abu Eqtaish, accountability program director at DCIP. “They forced paramedics to leave, then shot him at point-blank range before confiscating his body in a series of deliberate violations of international law. Countries need to enact an immediate arms embargo and sanctions on Israel to force accountability for Israeli forces who have been allowed to brutally kill Palestinian children with impunity for decades.”
Israeli special forces infiltrated the Palestinian city of Tubas around 5 a.m. today in two civilian vehicles with Palestinian license plates and surrounded the house of a wanted Palestinian man. Israeli military reinforcements arrived shortly after and began besieging the house, leading to armed confrontations between Palestinians and Israeli forces. At the same time, Israeli forces entered the Palestinian village of Tammun, southeast of Tubas, also leading to armed confrontations.
Mohammad was unarmed and not participating in confrontations at the time he was killed, according to documentation collected by DCIP.
Five Palestinians were killed during the incursions, including Mohammad, according to information collected by DCIP. Israeli forces withdrew around 12 p.m.
Israeli forces and settlers have killed 63 Palestinian children in the occupied West Bank in 2024, including two United States citizens, according to documentation collected by DCIP.
144 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.
Israeli forces have withheld the bodies of at least 39 Palestinian children since June 2016, according to documentation collected by DCIP. Five of the children’s bodies have since been released to their families, while 34 Palestinian children’s bodies remain withheld by Israeli authorities.
Israeli authorities’ practice of confiscating and withholding Palestinian bodies is a violation of international humanitarian law and international human rights law, which include absolute prohibitions on cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment, as well as stipulate that parties of an armed conflict must bury the deceased in an honorable way. For families, the practice amounts to collective punishment in violation of international humanitarian law.
In September 2019, the Israeli Supreme Court approved the practice of confiscating human remains after several legal challenges to the policy. On November 27, 2019, Israeli Defense Minister Naftali Bennett ordered all bodies of Palestinians alleged to have attacked Israeli citizens or soldiers to be withheld and not returned to their families. Israel is the only country in the world with such a policy of confiscating human remains, according to Adalah.
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.
