Sunday, September 27, 2015

RIP: Hadeel Salah Hashlamoun 1997-2015

"Evidence obtained by Amnesty International indicates that the killing of Hadeel al-Hashlamoun by Israeli forces in Hebron, in the occupied West Bank, on 22 September 2016 was an EXTRAJUDICIAL EXECUTION... [S]he at no time posed a sufficient threat to the soldiers to make their use of lethal force permissible. This killing is the latest in a long line of unlawful killings carried out by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank with impunity... [T]he girl was behind metal rails separating her from the soldiers and the same soldier who had fired the first shots [at the ground], moved back, dropped to one knee, and shot al-Hashlamoun in her left leg... [T]he soldier [then] got up and moved closer to her, until he was about a metre away, and then shot at her upper body 4 or 5 times again while she was lying motionless on the ground [...]

"More than 25 Palestinians including at least 3 children, have been killed by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank in 2015... Al-Hashlamoun was shot at a checkpoint that separates the centre of Hebron from al-Shuhada Street, which is completely closed to Palestinians. Hebron is the only city in the West Bank that has Israeli settlements, illegal under international law, in the city centre... Palestinian residents of Hebron have had their freedom of movement and their economic rights severely curtailed by those closures. In addition, Palestinians are often subject to arbitrary detention and humiliating treatment by Israeli security forces stationed in the city, and are often subject to settler violence, which the Israeli authorities fail to investigate effectively." (Amnesty International Public Statement: Israel/OPT: Evidence indicates West Bank killing was extrajudicial execution, 25/9/15)

For all of Palestine's Hadeels...

from Rafeef Ziadah's poem, Hadeel:

Hadeel
Hadeel
Hadeel is 9
Hadeel was 9
Officials said...
Israeli officials said
They regret her death
But terrorism must stop
Rockets must stop
Resistance must stop
Or they will continue to shell Gaza
Until we surrender the bit of dignity we have left
Until we elect who they want
Sign what they want
And die in silence
... the way they want

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