BETHLEHEM, April 20, 2017 (WAFA) – Only a day after Israeli army fatally shot a Palestinian youth involved in what Palestinians said was an apparent road incident to the south of Bethlehem while Israel alleged was a car attack, an Israeli settler Thursday ran over a Palestinian girl walking on the bypass road near Bethlehem, according to a security source.
Sources told WAFA that a settler ran over a 13-year-old girl who was identified as Kawthar Shawryeh, from Bethlehem area town of Taqou, which necessitated her transfer to hospital for medical treatment.
Her condition was described as moderate.
A day earlier, Israeli forces acted on the spot and fatally shot a Palestinian who was involved in an apparent road incident to the south of Bethlehem because they assumed that he was attempting to carry out a run-over attack against settlers.
A statement issued by the Palestinian Foreign Ministry argued that photos from the accident published by Israeli media shows the youth’s car severally damaged from the front after colliding with a bus, which the ministry said proves that it was nothing more than an accident.
Palestinian officials have accused Israeli forces of executing Palestinians in “cold-blood” and on the grounds of mere suspicion, maintaining that forces acted as both judges and executioners.
They noted that based on a series of documented and publicized incidents, the majority of Palestinians who assaulted Israelis or were suspected of doing so were executed by Israeli forces despite that fact that they posed no immediate danger to the latter‘s lives, stressing that forces could have restrained and detained them instead.
The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) noted in a 2015 report that “When the suspects in an assault were Jews, none of them were shot (except for a young Jewish man who was apparently thought to be a Palestinian).”
“There is no dispute as to the severity of the incidents and the need to protect the public from stabbings and other assaults. However, it appears that in too many cases, rather than acting in a manner that was appropriate for each incident, police officers and soldiers were quick to open fire in order to kill,” said ACRI.
T.R./M.K.
