PLO slams Israel’s ‘brutal’ killing of Palestinian teen

Palestinian teenager Mahmoud Badran was killed by Israeli forces on June 20, 2016. (Social media photo)

The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) has condemned Israel’s killing of a Palestinian teenager in the occupied West Bank as a “brutal attack.” 

Mahmoud Badran was shot and killed on Monday for allegedly throwing stones at moving vehicles between the villages of Beit Sira and Beit Ur in the West Bank.

Several others were also wounded in the incident. The Israeli army later announced that the teenagers were mistakenly targeted and had no connection to the stone throwing incident.

“From initial inquiry, it appears uninvolved bystanders were mistakenly hit during the pursuit,” said an Israeli army spokeswoman.

“This coldblooded assassination reaffirms our calls to the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary, or Arbitrary Executions, to initiate an immediate extensive investigation into Israeli extrajudicial killings of Palestinians, particularly children,” said PLO Secretary General Saeb Erekat in a statement released on Tuesday.

“The international community has the responsibility to stop allowing Israel’s impunity for the crimes it commits against the occupied land and people of Palestine,” he added.

The incident was also slammed by the Palestinian Foreign Ministry, which referred to it as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “reaction to EU’s adoption of the French initiative.”

An international French-backed conference is planned to convene later in the year to discuss the so-called peace process between Israelis and Palestinians. A meeting of the European Union foreign ministers in Luxembourg on Monday voiced support for the project, although Israel reiterated its opposition.

Israeli security forces gather at the scene where a Palestinian man was shot at the Tapuah junction, south of Nablus in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, on November 24, 2015. (AFP)

The ministry also called for regional and international human rights groups “to quickly document the circumstances of this heinous crime” so that the evidence can be later presented in court.

At least 217 Palestinians have lost their lives at the hands of Israeli forces since last October amid tensions which have risen since August 2015, when Israel imposed restrictions on the entry of Palestinian worshipers into the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in East al-Quds (Jerusalem).