A newly-released surveillance video showing the killing of two teenage boys, age 16 and 17, by Israeli troops during a demonstration last week contradicts Israeli accounts of the incident.While the Israeli government claimed that the boys were throwing stones, the video clearly shows that neither they nor any other youth were throwing stones at the time the shots were fired. They were in the same area where a protest had been taking place, outside of Ofer Prison, to mark the occasion of the Nakba, or Catastrophe, on May 15th (the day the state of Israel declared independence and established itself as a state on what had been Palestine). But, at the time of the shooting of the two boys, the protest was in a lull.
The video shows one boy walking slowly, by himself, with no one around him and no protesters nearby and, then, falling to the ground from a fatal gunshot wound. A few minutes later, the second child is walking slowly, in nearly the same spot, when he, too, falls to the ground from a gunshot wound.
The victims of the shooting were identified as 17-year-old Nadim Siam Nuwara, and 16-year-old Muhammad Mahmoud Odeh Abu al-Thahir.
According to Defence for Children International, which obtained and released the video footage, the CCTV footage was captured by cameras mounted on the building where the incident took place, which is owned by Fakher Zayed.
“The images captured on video show unlawful killings where neither child presented a direct and immediate threat to life at the time of their shooting,” said Rifat Kassis, executive director of DCI-Palestine. “These acts by Israeli soldiers may amount to war crimes, and the Israeli authorities must conduct serious, impartial, and thorough investigations to hold the perpetrators accountable for their crimes.”
Israeli officials made no comment on the new video footage.
