RAMALLAH, December 31, 2016 (WAFA) —Israeli forces have killed 35 Palestinian children in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, in 2016 compared to 26 children killed in 2015, Defense for Children International – Palestine (DCIP) said Saturday.
This makes it the deadliest year of the past decade for West Bank children, it said.
The increase in number of children killed in 2016 compared to the previous year is an indication that targeting children by Israeli soldiers is on the rise, it added.
DCIP said 30 of the children were killed by live bullets, 14 of whom were in the Hebron area.
It also said the Israeli authorities were still holding corpses of three Palestinian children. They are for Nasser Tarayreh, 16, from Bani Naim in the Hebron area, Muhammad Thalji Rajabi, 15, from Hebron’s old city, and Nabil Jawdat Salam, 14, from Shufat refugee camp in Jerusalem.
“Israeli forces have increasingly used excessive force to squash demonstrations since 2014,” said Ayed Abu Eqtaish, Accountability Program director at DCIP. “Intentional lethal force now appears to be routinely used by Israeli forces, even in unjustified situations, with no accountability, putting more and more children at risk,” he was quote earlier as saying.
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