Save The Children documents the death of 34 children in 2022 and calls on Israel to end the “culture of impunity” with snipers
Jana Zakarneh was about to turn 16 and had a white cat named Lulu. She also had dreams, illusions, fantasies… Like any girl her age in the world. A few days ago she shared a photo on social networks with a sign that read “do not think and have no doubts about Jana because we girls have many problems.” She lived in the Al-Bayadir neighborhood of Jenin, in the northern West Bank, where a week ago Israeli special forces launched a raid in which eighteen people were arrested. These raids are very frequent in a city where the flame of Palestinian armed resistance is kept alive.
After half past nine at night the offensive began and an intense exchange of fire lasted twenty minutes. When it was over, her father and Jana’s 13-year-old little brother began looking for her in her house, room after room, but she was not there. They went up to the terrace and there they found her, in the middle of a pool of blood.
The teenager had tried to catch the cat and an Israeli sniper shot her four times, two in the head, one in the neck and one in the back, according to what the father told local media. Jana thus became part of the black list of the 34 minors that Israel has killed in 2022 in the occupied territories, a figure that doubles that of last year and is the highest since 2015, according to Save The Children.
“The Army regrets any type of damage caused to civilians, including those who are in the combat zone and close to terrorists during an exchange of fire,” the Hebrew forces said when the Palestinian Ministry of Health reported Jana’s death. The Army also said that it would open an investigation, but for a long time they have been a mere procedure in the face of the international community.
“Heroes” whatever they do
Politicians and the military close ranks around some soldiers who, whatever they do, are “heroes”, as the next Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, defined them a week ago, after the dissemination of some images in which a A uniformed man shot several times at an unarmed Palestinian youth lying on the ground.
“The continued use of lethal force against children is unacceptable. So far this year there are already 34 Palestinian children killed, the bloodiest year in the last fifteen,” denounces Jason Lee, head of Save The Children in the occupied territories, who also has words of remembrance for the 16-year-old Israeli teenager. years dead after a bomb explosion at the stop where he was waiting for the bus in Jerusalem.
Lee warns of “the escalation of violence that we are witnessing in the Palestinian territories” and says that “the culture of impunity will only serve to maintain the cycles of violence. This has to stop. If measures are not taken to de-escalate the situation, children will continue to pay the price. The international organization asks the Army to stop using live ammunition against minors and calls for independent investigations to clarify each death.
It rains and it pours in Jenin, where another sniper shot Shirin Abu Akhle in the neck in May. The American Palestinian journalist was perfectly identified with her ‘Press’ vest and she was in an area where the press is usually placed during raids. At first, the Army lied and blamed the Palestinian militias, but soon had to backtrack and admit the “high probability” that it was one of their own who fired “accidentally.” The family cries out for justice, but no one has paid, nor will they pay for that death because “there is no suspicion of a crime that justifies the opening of an investigation by the Military Police,” in the words of the Army.
The same will happen with Jana’s death. Snipers enjoy impunity to pull the trigger whoever is in their crosshairs, including children, as reported by Save The Children.
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