Israeli Human Rights Group, Yesh Din, filed an appeal to the Israeli High Court of Justice against closing the case file of Abeer Al Arameen, 10, a Palestinian child who was killed by Israeli forces in Anata town, near Jerusalem in 2007.
The Israeli prosecution decided to close the file in July 2007 after claiming that there are “no sufficient evidences”.
The lawyers representing the family said that this appeal comes as the killing of this child who was at school and on her way to buy some candy from a nearby shop, cannot just be ignored by the judicial system “as if her death did not mean anything”.
The child was killed on January 16 2007 as she walked a few steps out of her school along with her sister and one of her friends. They were going to a nearby shop to buy some candy when the soldiers shot her in the head.
She was seriously injured and died of her wounds on January 19, 2007. The army said that soldiers were firing at a nearby protest.
Yet, the Israeli prosecution decided to close the file of Al Arameen without prosecuting the soldier who shot her.
In January 2007, an autopsy was conducted after being requested by the family with the help of the Israeli Human Rights Group, B’Tselem. The results revealed that the child was killed by a rubber-coated bullet which hit her in the head, and not by a concussion grenade or a stone as the military police claims.
B’Tselem probed the incident and managed to prove that the army opened fire in spite that there were no serious confrontations in the area, while the army and the police claimed that that they did not open fire “although there were serious confrontations”.
It is worth mentioning that peace activists in Israel posted the picture of Abeer in several places in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. The following sentences were on the picture of the slain child; “Prosecute the killer of Abeer”, “Abeer, a 10-year old child was killed at the gate of her school by border-guard policemen”.
