Through interviews with bereaved Palestinian families and human rights organizations, The Guardian examines "Israel's license to kill" in the occupied West Bank. The report explores the killings of Palestinian children and the absence of indictments or accountability for those responsible.
On the day he was killed, nine-year-old Palestinian child Mohammad al-Halaq was excited about a new schoolbag he had received at school, which carried the logo of the UN child protection agency, UNICEF.
“He was extremely happy. It was something out of the ordinary for him to be given a bag,” his mother, Aliyah, recalled to The Guardian. “He came knocking on the door to tell me had this new bag to put pencils and pens in.”
The boy ran home and then hurried back to school to ask if he could also get a bag for his brother. After lunch, he went outside to catch birds using a net he had built himself. He succeeded and proudly showed it to friends before deciding he wanted to visit his grandparents nearby.
The family lives in ar-Rihiya, in the hills south of al-Khalil, an area increasingly exposed to Israeli settler violence and IOF aggression. His mother said she was uneasy about him leaving the house, but he insisted and ran off while she went to the shops. It was the last time she saw him alive.
Mohammad al-Halaq was shot in the pelvis by an Israeli soldier around 4 pm on October 16 last year.
He had been playing football in a schoolyard when two Israeli army vehicles arrived. The children scattered.
Video footage shows a soldier exiting a jeep and aiming his rifle toward a hillside where several boys were watching. Shots were fired, and Mohammad took a few steps before collapsing. Other children tried to reach him but were forced back by additional gunfire and tear gas.
His mother, Aliyah, was at a shop when she received a call. It was initially placed to her father, but she sensed something was wrong and took the phone.
“I asked him directly: ‘Is it my son Muhammad? Please tell me the truth. Is it my son?’ And he hung up when he realised it was me,” she said.
He later succumbed to his wounds in hospital.
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