Second Palestinian teenager shot by Israeli army within hours

· 18-year-old boy brain dead after being shot in head
· Incident occurred just hours after funeral of another child who was murdered by Israeli Forces.

Israel's army shot an 18-year-old Palestinian in the head in the West Bank town of Ni'ilin, just hours after the village buried a palestinian child who had also been shot in the head by a soldier.

Eyewitnesses said the 18-year-old, Ahmed Yousef Amirah, was shot at close range when a military jeep drove past and an officer fired three rubber bullets at him from within the vehicle.

It is the third incident this month in which Israel's military appears to have deliberately targeted a resident of Ni'ilin, where protests against Israel's West Bank barrier and violent clashes occur almost daily.

Amirah was shot around 7.30pm, around four hours after a Palestinian Child Ahmed Moussa was buried in the village cemetery next to his parent's house.

Fighting erupted soon after the funeral when teenage boys used sling shots to fire stones at border police who had blocked one of two entrances to Ni'ilin during the burial.

The battle between the youths and the border police raged for several hours, wounding three border policemen as well as Amirah, who is in a hospital in Ramallah and is not expected to survive. Doctors have declared him brain dead.

At the beginning of the funeral procession, which made its way through the village after Moussa's body had been brought back from Ramallah where it was sent for an autopsy, Israeli military forces fired tear gas at the convoy, intensifying the anger in Ni'ilin.

Ni'ilin's residents said Amirah was not participating in the fighting but standing outside a house watching from a distance.

Israeli human rights group, B'Tselem, said the use of excessive force against protesters was a breach of international law and the military's own policies.

"In this situation, even so-called less lethal crowd control weapons such as rubber bullets and tear gas have strict limitations on their use. Rubber bullets can be lethal when fired from less than 40 metres away," said B'Tselem's communications director, Sarit Michaeli.

The military's excessive use of force in the village was exposed last week when B'Tselem published a video showing a soldier shooting, at close range, the foot of a Palestinian man, who was blindfolded and cuffed.

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Truly a crime against a child as Anger was shown at West Bank boy's funeral who was killed by Israeli Army

Large crowds have attended the funeral of a Palestinian boy shot dead during a confrontation with Israeli troops in Nilin in the West Bank on Tuesday.

Palestinian officials say the child Ahmed Musa was killed by a live bullet fired by an Israeli border policeman.

Israeli media reports say an initial police investigation showed an officer used live rounds against protesters.

About 3,000 people took part in the funeral march from Ramallah to Nilin shouting slogans denouncing Israel.

Eyewitnesses say a dozen Israeli army vehicles were parked at the entrance to the village and troops fired a tear gas grenades to disperse the crowd.

Controversy

Ahmed Moussa died during a protest against Israel's barrier in the occupied West Bank.

Regional Governor Said Abu Ali said an autopsy showed Ahmed Moussa had been struck by a single bullet from an M16 assault rifle which entered his forehead and exited the back of his head.

The planned route for Israel's barrier threatens to separate Nilin from hundreds of hectares of it olive groves. In addition, the Israeli army is replacing the main access road to the village with a tunnel under military control.

Daily demonstrations there frequently turn into clashes between stone-throwers and Israeli soldiers and border police, who usually use tear gas and rubber-coated bullets rather than live ammunition.

Nilin protest

Nilin was already in the news for a recent controversial incident when a soldier was filmed firing a rubber-coated bullet at a bound and blindfolded detainee from close range.

Israeli officials said they would deploy anti-riot units at Nilin in future to deal with the protests.

Palestinian presidential aide Rafiq Husseini, who attended the funeral, is quoted saying the shooting was "truly a crime against a child".

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http://windowintopalestine.blogspot.com/2008/07/israeli-occupation-soldier-shoots.html

http://windowintopalestine.blogspot.com/2008/07/israeli-troops-kill-palestinian-kid.html
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