Britain condemns Israel over fatal shooting of a child

London Telegraph
Mar. 20, 2006

The Foreign Office condemned Israel yesterday after a young Palestinian girl was killed in a what her family describe as a hail of bullets in the northern West Bank on Friday.

Akbar Zayed, reported to be eight years old, was with her uncle on her way to a doctor's appointment when the pair drove into an Israeli military operation to seize militants near the town of Jenin.

The Israeli army, after an initial inquiry, said its soldiers called on Akbar's uncle to stop before they opened fire at his car's wheels. But in hospital, where he was recovering from gunshot wounds to his arm and leg, Kamal Zayed gave a conflicting account of events.

He said that three Israeli soldiers, from an arrest team of more than 30, opened fire on his car before he had the chance to respond to their shouted orders. "The first bullet hit my niece. She got a bullet in the head from the very beginning," he said.

No one was arrested during the operation. The Foreign Office minister, Douglas Alexander, urged Israel to show restraint. He said: "We condemn the killing on 17 March of a Palestinian child in the Occupied Territories. Israeli actions in the Occupied Territories must be proportionate and in accordance with international law."

The condemnation was made just days after British monitors withdrew from a Palestinian jail, prompting an Israeli army raid in which six senior militants were seized. The speed of the army's intervention prompted accusations of British collusion and furious anti-British demonstrations in the Palestinian territories.

According to B'Tselem, the respected Israeli human rights group, Akbar Zayed is the 3,396th Palestinian to have been killed by Israel since the outbreak of the second Palestinian uprising, or intifada, in 2000. It says the number of Israeli soldiers and civilians killed by Palestinians during that time is 994. Of the Palestinians to have died, 683 were minors, according to B'Tselem.

Earlier this month three Palestinian children - aged seven, 14 and 16 - were killed by gunfire from an Israeli helicopter in Gaza, during the targeted assassination of an Islamic Jihad leader. A fourth child, Amer Hassan Hassan Basuni, 16, was killed by an Israeli sniper in Nablus.