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December 10th, 2020 
Awake Goy 
Ali Abu Alia was turning 15, and this year, he wanted a birthday party.
It wasn’t typical of his family to throw big birthday parties, but as one of the youngest boys in the family, he held a special place in his parents heart. So when Ali came to his parents, Ayman and Nihad, on Friday morning and asked if he could have his friends over for a birthday party later that evening, they happily obliged.
Nihad spent the morning baking Ali a birthday cake, and preparing his favorite meal, ‘maqlooba’, a traditional Palestinian dish of spiced rice, vegetables, and chicken.
But by the time the sun set, Ali’s birthday maqlooba sat cold and untouched on his family’s dinner table, his birthday cake still perfectly intact.
Instead of gathering around Ali to watch him blow out his candles and sing him a happy birthday, Ali’s friends and family cried as they stood around his lifeless body, and bid him farewell.
Ali was killed by Israeli soldiers on Friday afternoon, barely 12 hours into his 15th birthday, during protests in his village of al-Mughayyir in the central occupied West Bank, some 30km northeast of Ramallah.
“We have these weekly protests in al-Mughayyir every Friday to demonstrate against the Israeli settlers who are stealing our land,” Ayman Abu Alia, Ali’s father told Mondoweiss. “The protest on Friday was peaceful on our end, as always. It was the soldiers who were violent.”
According to Abu Alia, the protests started around 10:30 a.m. “When Ali heard the sounds of the protest he went into the town,” Abu Alia said, adding that it was typical of Ali and his older brother to join the hundreds of other villagers who protested on Fridays.
During the protest, the soldiers fired tear gas and sound bombs at protesters, reportedly injuring at least four people with rubber-coated steel bullets. The demonstration had gone on for around three hours, however, when things took a much more violent turn.
“At around 1:30 Ali was shot in the abdomen from a distance of around 160 meters, we estimate” Abu Alia said, adding that he believed his son was targeted by an Israeli sniper, who “wanted to kill.”
“The people who witnessed it said that the second Ali fell to the ground, the Israeli soldiers retreated and the confrontations were finished. That’s what they [the soldiers] wanted, they just wanted to kill someone and go home.”
Killed by a ‘non lethal’ weapon
Ali was rushed in a civilian vehicle to the nearby village of Turmus Ayya, where he was then transferred to an ambulance and taken to a hospital in Ramallah city.
“I rushed to the hospital, and when I got there they told me I was in surgery,” Abu Alia told Mondoweiss. “I had a terrible feeling about it.”
After nearly three hours of anxiously pacing in the hospital waiting room, surrounded by dozens of friends and family from al-Mughayyir, the doctors came out of the operating room.
“When the doctor started telling me ‘we did everything we could’, I just held up my hand and told them to stop, because I knew what they meant. Ali was gone, he was a martyr,” Abu Alia said, adding that the whole room broke into tears and screams at the news of Ali’s death.
According to Abu Alia, his son was shot with a 0.22 caliber bullet, referred to by locals as a “Toto” bullet. The army’s use of the ammunition, typically fired by Israeli snipers who use American-made Ruger Precision Rifles, has been criticized by rights groups and Palestinian activists for years.
“They wanted to protest to die down. They knew if someone is injured badly the protest will disperse,” Abu Alia told Mondoweiss.
The Israeli army classifies Toto bullets as non-lethal and therefore uses them as they do any other “crowd control” measure (i.e. tear gas, rubber bullets, etc.). The bullets, however, have been lethal in numerous cases when used against Palestinian protesters.
In one case eerily similar to that of Ali Abu Alia, Israeli forces shot and killed 13-year old Abed al-Rahman Abdallah with a Toto bullet to the chest in 2015. The army later claimed Abdallah was “shot by mistake.” No one was held accountable for his death.
Israeli human rights group B’Tselem has repeatedly called for an end to the use of 0.22 bullets, the use of which directly contravenes the army’s open-fire regulations, which only permits the use of live ammunition in cases of “mortal danger” posed to the soldiers’ life.
Though the army itself suspended the use of Toto bullets from 2001 to 2008, the excessive use of the ammunition against Palestinian protesters has since been documented extensively by groups like B’Tselem.
“The practical message conveyed by the military to soldiers in the field is that 0.22 bullets are not lethal ammunition, but rather another crowd control measure. This message is not only unlawful but puts people’s lives in danger,” B’Tselem said in 2015.
Ali Abu Alia’s own brother, Bassam, had been injured with a Toto bullet in his foot during a protest last year. Since then, Bassam has been injured with live ammunition on one more occasion, and just one week before Ali was killed, he had been shot in the hand with a rubber-coated steel bullet.
“We have had four children from al-Mughayyir martyred by the Israeli occupation. What can we do?” an exhausted Abu Alia asked. “We can only ask God to protect our children. Everyone else, the international community, has failed to protect them.”
‘Our most beloved boy’
Photos of a wide-eyed, smiling Ali have flooded international news outlets and social media channels across Palestine, as people express their outrage at his killing and pay respects to the latest victim of Israel’s occupation.
According to Defense for Children International — Palestine (DCIP), Ali is the fifth Palestinian child to be killed with live ammunition at the hands of Israeli forces this year. He is the second minor to be killed in the village of al-Mughayyir since 2018, when 16-year-old Laith Abu Naim was shot and killed after he threw a stone at an Israeli military jeep.
The outrage surrounding Ali’s killing has been clouded by a sense of frustration, particularly among Palestinians, who know all too well that justice for the victims of Israel’s occupation, even innocent children, is rarely ever achieved.
Ayman Abu Alia says it’s too early to think about filing complaints, court cases, and trying to get justice for his son. For now, he prays for his son’s soul, and takes solace in the fact that Ali is considered a ‘martyr’, which in the Islamic faith, means that he is promised a place in Paradise.
“This is how God wanted Ali to go, and we must put our faith in Him,” Abu Alia said.
And while his son has joined a long list of Palestinian children killed by Israel, he will not be remembered solely as just another statistic.
“He was our most beloved boy, and brought joy to us and everyone around him,” Abu Alia said. “He loved sports, and football, and never left the house without his football in his hand.”
“In the past few days, I have seen all the young men and boys in the village stand with us, and it makes me feel like Ali is still standing here with us,” he said. “He’s still here, brave, and standing up for his people and his land. That’s how I will remember my son.”
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