Family of Assassinated Palestinian Child, Mahmoud Al-Qarnawi, Reveals Barbaric Conduct of Israeli Occupation Soldiers

Date: 26 / 08 / 2007 Time: 12:14

Tulkarem – Ma'an –

Israeli occupation forces shot intensively at a child on Friday, while he was sitting on a fig tree in Sa'eida village, near the northern West Bank town of Tulkarem.

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".

The child had Israeli citizenship, but was visiting his relatives in the Palestinian West Bank village.

Ma'an's correspondent in Tulkarem met with Mahmoud's family. They said that Israeli Special Forces had shot and killed the child.

Mahmoud's sister, 16-year-old Ruqaiya, said she had watched as Mahmoud was murdered.

"Terrifying"

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.

"I went outside with my mother to witness the most terrifying thing I have seen in my life."

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.

"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.

Ruqaiya added that the Israeli occupation 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.

"His head was open because of the bullet wounds. The scene was terrible.

"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."

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."

The Israeli occupation forces alleged that Siddiq is 'wanted' for resisting the occupation.

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