12-Year-Old Palestinian Boy Laid to Rest a Day after Being Killed by Israeli Army

Hundreds of Palestinians Wednesday bade farewell to the 12-year-old martyr Muhiyi al-Tabakhi who was killed by Israeli gunfire Tuesday evening in al-Ram town in northern of Jerusalem in West Bank district, according to the Palestinian media.

On Tuesday, locals reported that clashes erupted after Israeli forces raided the town of al-Ram, during which Muhyee was killed.

Palestinian Ministry of Health spokesman Osama Najah said on Wednesday that Muhye’s family had declined to conduct an autopsy, but that the young boy had been shot in the chest and head.

Wrapped in a Palestinian flag, Muhyee’s body was taken in an ambulance from the Palestine Medical Complex in the city of Ramallah to al-Ram on Wednesday, where a funeral procession was held.

Hundreds of young men carried Muhyee’s body to his family home, where family members and friends were able to pay their respects for the last time. Muhyee was then carried to one of al-Ram’s mosques for funeral prayers.
Mourners then marched to the neighborhood’s cemetery, where the young boy was laid to rest.

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Speeches delivered during the funeral denounced Muhyee’s killing as an act done “in cold blood.”
The participants in the funeral waved the Palestinian flag and chanted national slogans demanding avenging child Tabakhi. He is the first martyr of the town since the beginning of Jerusalem Intifada which broke out in October 2015.

Meanwhile, clashes erupted in the town in the wake of his martyrdom resulting in the injury of four Palestinian youths by Israeli rubber bullets. A fifth Palestinian man was injured when he fell during the clashes, according to medical sources.

However, Najah, the Palestinian Ministry of Health spokesperson fully attributed Muhyee’s killing to Israeli forces.
“They cannot deny that they killed him,” Najah said. “It’s their responsibility.”

Najah added that at least 63 Palestinians under the age of 18 had been killed by Israelis since October when a wave of unrest began across the occupied Palestinian territory and Israel. More than 220 Palestinians have been killed by Israelis and some 32 Israelis have been killed by Palestinians during that time period.

Israeli forces have come under repeated criticism for excessive use of force, as well as lethal methods of crowd control that often result in death or injury of protesters.

Earlier on Wednesday, Palestinians buried 22-year-old Anwar Falah al-Salaymeh, who was also killed in al-Ram a week earlier when he and two friends driving in the area stumbled upon an ongoing Israeli army raid in the area.
At the time, the army said that forces shot at a “speeding vehicle heading towards them,” killing al-Salaymeh, although the other passengers in the car vehemently denied that they had been aware of the presence of Israeli forces in the area and that they were heading to a bakery at the time of the shooting.