Palestine said goodbye to the bloodiest years

The Occupied Palestinian Territories bid farewell to the year 2022 with a waterfall of bloody blood and deep sadness that did not leave hearts, eyelids and homes, while the occupation witnessed the murder of (230) Palestinians, in the Gaza Strip, Jerusalem, the West Bank and the occupied Palestinian territories, including (49) children, along with the murder of Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh, while she was reporting on the Israeli occupation forces’ attack on the Jenin camp, in the northern West Bank.

According to the latest report by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the Occupied Territories (OCHA), measured on a monthly average, 2022 was the deadliest year for Palestinians in the West Bank since the United Nations began systematically recording deaths in 2005.

Extermination and retention of innocence

The months of 2022 recorded records proving that the Israeli occupation deliberately targeted Palestinian children. According to statistics from Defense for Children International, Israeli forces have killed (49) Palestinian children since the beginning of 2022, including (32) children in the West Bank and (17) others in the Gaza Strip.

According to the World Movement, all children killed by live ammunition were shot in the upper body, indicating that they were shot with intent to kill.

The Israeli occupation was not satisfied with this heinous amount of crimes against childhood, as it imprisoned the bodies of two Palestinian boys inside a refrigerator after they were killed by its forces, refusing to hand them over to their families, so that the area of ​​sorrow and destitution spreads in their hearts, and this the number is part of the total bodies (12) of children whose parents were denied a view of the last farewell.

The two boys are Mutassim Muhammad Atallah, from the village of Harmala in the Bethlehem province of the West Bank, who died as a result of being shot in the head by occupation forces on May 8, 2022, and Muhammad Maher Turkman, from Camp Jenin in the northern West Bank, who erected in al-Ula. After he was seriously wounded by Israeli army soldiers on October 14, 2022, according to the coordinator of the national campaign to retrieve the bodies of Palestinian martyrs, Hussein Shujaia.

In an exclusive interview with Emirates Today, Shejaia said: “Israeli forces practice a policy of detaining the bodies of Palestinians they kill, especially in the cities of the West Bank and the Holy City of Jerusalem, in the context of collective punishment against them and their families, especially the bodies of children and boys, where they kill Israeli forces preserve their childhood innocence and keep their remains out of the sight and hands of their families.”

He added: “This heinous policy, which violates international law and the International Charter of Human Rights, deepens the wounds of the mothers and fathers of their children, depriving them of the last time in their lives to embrace their liver.”

Shujaia claims that the Israeli occupation deliberately kept the bodies of Palestinians it killed to hide the heinous crimes of abuse its military forces committed against Palestinians, young and old, so that their effects would not be revealed in forensic medical reports and would not be used as a pressure card in favor of victims’ families to file criminal charges against what their loved ones were exposed to.

4 children from one family

Among the deadly stories of the Israeli occupation claiming young lives, during 2022, is the extermination of the innocence of four children of one family, in one moment, during the events of the latest Israeli aggression on the besieged Strip in August 2022.

At sunset on August 7, 2022, Israeli army helicopters targeted a group of children in the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip as they played outside the gates of the “Al-Fallujah” cemetery near their homes.

Immediately, the children: (Jamil Najm – six years old), (Ihab Najm – 13 years old), (Hamid Najm – 14 years old), and (Mohammed Najm – 14 years old), their blood and body parts mixed with the remains of the graves. those that preceded them Underground, as a result of shrapnel from Israeli occupation missiles.

The Acting Humanitarian Coordinator of the United Nations, Lucia Elmi, stated that the current year is the bloodiest in the Palestinian territories in 16 years, as a result of “an alarming increase in violence and restrictions on movement in the West Bank, including occupied Jerusalem.” The Palestinian News Agency reported.

Al-May indicated that the monthly rate of Palestinian casualties has increased by 57% compared to last year, noting that last October alone, occupation forces killed 15 Palestinians, including six children, in search and arrest operations, exchanges of fire or during clashes in the West Bank. coast, including Jerusalem, often after settler attacks or incursions into Palestinian villages, in some cases.

The UN official ruled out the possibility that the victims would pose a tangible or imminent threat that would justify the use of lethal force, raising fears of excessive use of force.

She stressed that the United Nations is concerned about the increasing restrictions on movement, as the occupation has imposed widespread restrictions on movement, in more than one place during the year, which has limited many people’s access to health care, education and livelihoods.