Wrongful shooting?
Palestinian teen complains IDF soldiers shot him in the back after he refused to incriminate his friends and fled the soldiers' jeep
TEL AVIV - IDF Soldiers shot Palestinian 14 year-old boy in the back for refusing to provide them with information about fellow stone throwers, the boy’s family said Thursday night.
Earlier this week, Ahmed Salach was severely wounded in the back from IDF fire at a West Bank village near Bethlehem. Salach has been hospitalized since the incident.
An IDF official told Ynetnews Salach was shot after he was arrested for throwing Molotov cocktail bottles at Israeli cars on highway number 60, which bypasses Bethlehem.
The boy offered his version of the event: “It was about 13:30. I was in the grocery store, eating ice cream, when the soldiers came into the store and asked the owner to tell everyone to leave the store, especially the little children.”
'I just want to support my family'
The boy said soldiers then grabbed him by the shirt and took him to the highway, demanding he points out to them the children who threw stones at them earlier.
According to Salach, he told the soldiers he did not know who the children were, whereupon the soldiers, who were irate at his stubbornness, took him to his house and conducted a search.
Salach said when soldiers did not find anything, they forced him he to call his father.
Upon the father’s arrival, soldiers told him his son threw stones at them; the father, Taha Salach, then asked them to let him talk to him privately. Taha Salach said that at this point, he told his son off, and one of the soldiers then yelled at him, ‘Don’t hit your son, he didn’t do anything; the other boys did.”
When Taha Salach argued with the soldiers as to the reason they decided to hold up his son, Ahmed Salach fled the soldiers’ jeep. It was at this point that some of the soldiers began shooting at him.
Although he was hit, Taha Salach said his son continued to run, and collapsed next to the neighbors’ door. Taha Salach recollected: “One of the soldiers came back while muttering, ‘Son of a bitch that boy,’ and I did not know what was going on with my son.”
Taha Salach told Ynet that he does not intend to sue Israel or the IDF.
“Who am I to sue a whole country or a whole military? I do not want any problems. I just want to support my family,” he said.
