- TULKAREM Ma'an --
The Israeli occupying forces shot intensively at a child on Friday, while
he was sitting in a fig tree in Seida village, near the northern West Bank
town of Tulkarem.
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- 11-year-old Mahmoud Al Qarnawi was left bleeding on the
ground by the Israeli troops. When his mother asked the soldiers if her
son was alive, they said "maybe".
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- The child had Israeli citizenship, but was visiting his
relatives in the Palestinian West Bank village.
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- Ma'an's correspondent in Tulkarem met with Mahmoud's
family. They said that Israeli Special Forces had shot and killed the child.
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- Mahmoud's sister, 16-year-old Ruqaiya, said she had watched
as Mahmoud was murdered.
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- "Terrifying"
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- Ruqaiya said, "I heard the sounds of intensive shooting
behind the house, I opened our gate to see what was happening and one of
the soldiers shot at me. But I wasn't hurt. I sat in a room and minutes
later my mother came.
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- "I went outside with my mother to witness the most
terrifying thing I have seen in my life."
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- Ruqaiya continued, "Mahmoud was on the ground under
the fig tree. He was moving but without sound or speech. There was a lot
of blood around him.
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- "My mother asked one of the soldiers "is my
son alive?" and he answered her in an ironic way in Arabic "maybe
he is still." They stayed until he died and then left," she said.
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- Ruqaiya added that the soldiers refused to allow her
to drag her brother's body away. "They threatened me, they said they
will kill me, but I insisted on removing him from under the tree.
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- "His head was open because of the bullet wounds.
The scene was terrible.
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- "The soldiers then asked me to remove my other brother,
Siddiq, aged 22, who was also injured and bleeding. The soldiers then dragged
him for seven metres before treating him."
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- A local lady said that the soldiers interrogated one
of the other boys from the Al Qarnawi family, Safwat. "They questioned
him and beat him. After that they got a football and began playing in the
garden."
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- The Israeli forces alleged that Siddiq is 'wanted' for
resisting the occupation.
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