Slain Teenager Found In Israeli Settlement
At 3pm on Wednesday, 16th April, the mutilated body of
15 year old
Hammad Nidar Khadatbh was found in lands of
the illegal Israeli
settlement of Al-Hamra by his father,
who was out searching for his
missing son.
Hammad had
left the house at 9am on Tuesday, 15th April to work on
the
family's land, located near the stolen agricultural
lands of the
settlement. As the second eldest son, he
was picking cucumbers for
the family rather than going to
school, to help with the income of his
struggling family.
At evening he failed to return home, and so his
father
and other family members immediately went searching for
him.
They found nothing. They set out again the next
day, Wednesday, and
found his body in a place they had
searched the day before - clearly
dumped
overnight.
Hammad's body was naked, bloated, and tortured.
His neck was broken,
and his face had been smashed in
with rocks. One finger had been cut
off and there were
multiple holes in his torso, seemingly made by a
sharp,
round implement - something like a pen, his family
explained.
An Israeli police officer who arrived on the
scene to investigate the
incident confirmed that Hammad
had been murdered, but made no comment
as to by whom.
Hammad's body was immediately taken to the coroner
in
Jerusalem, but the report on the exact cause of his
death will not be
available for another week.
After
speaking to many people in the area, it was established
that
Hammad had tried to return home via the Al-Hamra
(Arabic for "red
area") checkpoint, but was refused
passage through as being only 15
years old, he had no
identification (IDs are only issued to
Palestinians aged
16 years and over). It appears that Hammad was
then
forced to walk around the long way home, and was
taken at this point
on Tuesday night.
Given the
location of the body - on settlement lands and near
an
Israeli-only apartheid road - the family are convinced
that Hammad was
killed by settlers from the Al-Hamra
settlement. His father explained
that his son was only a
young boy, and had no enemies. Also, he
explained, there
are no Palestinians in that area, only settlers from
the
agricultural settlement.
The 11500 residents of the
village of Beit Furiq, located near the
northern West
Bank city of Nablus, have regular problems with
the
illegal settlements near their village.
Approximately three years ago
a 78 year old man, Mohammad
Abu Oday, was killed when settlers from
Itamar settlement
destroyed his head with large rocks. Another young
man
was also shot dead by settlers, and five others have been
injured
whilst attempting to pick their olives.
Residents advise that these
attacks happen when
Palestinians go to lands that are anywhere near
to
settlements, occurring every couple of
years.
Interestingly, these attacks elicit no
repurcussions on the settlers
by the Israeli military
such as are inflicted upon Palestinian
villages in
similar, or even lesser situations. The village of
Beita,
for example, was shut down for four days last
week, with massive
roadblocks installed on every road to
the village, and residents
arrested for attempting to
leave after a shooting occurred near an
Israeli-only road
in which no one was injured.
Hammad was buried at 3pm on
Thursday 17th April, and is survived by
his parents and
seven
siblings.
ends