Hundreds of Palestinians attended the funeral in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday for a three-year-old boy who died after being shot by the Israeli army last week.
Mohammed al-Tamimi, from the village of Nabi Saleh near Ramallah, died Monday in an Israeli hospital where he had been transferred for injuries sustained during firefights between Israeli soldiers and assailants in the settlement area of Neve Tzuf (Halamish), according to the army.
She said she “regrets the harm caused to non-combatants” and reviews the incident.
Mohammed al-Tamimi was “a wonderful child”, his mother, Marwa al-Tamimi, told AFP at his funeral. “Everyone loved him and he loved everyone (…) He wanted to play outside all the time and didn’t want to come home”.
The body of the boy, wrapped in a Palestinian flag and topped with a wreath of flowers, was transported through his village, AFP journalists noted.
The Israeli army stood not far from the funeral procession and blocked one of the main entrances to the village, according to these journalists on the spot.
“I want an international trial. That’s enough, every day we hear that a child or a family is martyred,” said Marwa al-Tamimi, whose husband was also shot in the incident.
According to the army, attackers opened fire Thursday evening in the direction of the settlement of Neveh Tzuf and “soldiers posted near the community responded by firing a number of bullets”, wounding the two Palestinians.
According to Marwa al-Tamimi, her husband Haitham had gone out with his son to move his car, fearing that it would be damaged by nearby soldiers.
“We fired at him when he turned on the headlights,” she told AFP. The soldiers “fired in their direction for a while, they couldn’t get out of the car (…) So I took refuge “inside (the house)”.
The West Bank, Palestinian territory, has been occupied by the Israeli army since 1967.
Since the beginning of the year, at least 156 Palestinians, 21 Israelis, a Ukrainian and an Italian have been killed in violence linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to an AFP tally compiled from official Israeli and Palestinian sources .
These statistics include, on the Palestinian side, combatants and civilians, including minors, and on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, including minors, and three members of the Arab minority.
06/06/2023 14:59:11 – Nabi Saleh (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
