WASHINGTON -- Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.) has requested the State Department open an investigation into whether the killing of two Palestinian teenagers last year by Israeli security forces warrants withholding of military aid under the conditions of the Leahy Law.
“The murders of Nadeem Nawara and Mohammad Daher highlight a brutal system of occupation that devalues and dehumanizes Palestinian children," she wrote in a letter to two State Department officials, referring to the teenagers who were shot and killed May 15, 2014, during a protest at the Ofer prison in the West Bank. “It is time for a strong and unequivocal statement of U.S. commitment to the human rights of Palestinian children living under Israeli occupation,” McCollum continued in the letter, which was publicly released on Monday.
The protests were part of the annual remembrance of Nakba Day, the Palestinian term for the day after Israel declared itself a state in 1948. The Israeli military initially denied using live ammunition at the protest, insisting that security forces only used rubber bullets to disperse the crowd. But a bloodied bullet was found in Nawara’s backpack, and an autopsy showed an entry and exit wound in his body. At his family’s request, Daher did not have an autopsy.
A compilation of live video footage from news outlets and closed-circuit television from a local business show that neither boy was actively participating in the protest or posing a threat to Israeli soldiers when shot.
The Israeli military said the footage had been edited in a "biased and tendentious way" and did not "reflect the violent nature of the riot."
A subsequent video, compiled by the London-based Forensic Architecture group, overlays the closed-circuit television footage of Nawara being shot with CNN footage of two Israeli security officials, showing the trajectory the bullet traveled to hit the 17-year-old.
Original Article
Source: huffingtonpost.com/
Author: Jessica Schulberg
“The murders of Nadeem Nawara and Mohammad Daher highlight a brutal system of occupation that devalues and dehumanizes Palestinian children," she wrote in a letter to two State Department officials, referring to the teenagers who were shot and killed May 15, 2014, during a protest at the Ofer prison in the West Bank. “It is time for a strong and unequivocal statement of U.S. commitment to the human rights of Palestinian children living under Israeli occupation,” McCollum continued in the letter, which was publicly released on Monday.
The protests were part of the annual remembrance of Nakba Day, the Palestinian term for the day after Israel declared itself a state in 1948. The Israeli military initially denied using live ammunition at the protest, insisting that security forces only used rubber bullets to disperse the crowd. But a bloodied bullet was found in Nawara’s backpack, and an autopsy showed an entry and exit wound in his body. At his family’s request, Daher did not have an autopsy.
A compilation of live video footage from news outlets and closed-circuit television from a local business show that neither boy was actively participating in the protest or posing a threat to Israeli soldiers when shot.
Nadeem Nawara shooting at 1:45 p.m., May 15, 2014.
Mohammad Daher shooting at 2:59 p.m., May 15, 2014.
The Israeli military said the footage had been edited in a "biased and tendentious way" and did not "reflect the violent nature of the riot."
A subsequent video, compiled by the London-based Forensic Architecture group, overlays the closed-circuit television footage of Nawara being shot with CNN footage of two Israeli security officials, showing the trajectory the bullet traveled to hit the 17-year-old.
Original Article
Source: huffingtonpost.com/
Author: Jessica Schulberg
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