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December 8th, 2020 
Awake Goy 
On Friday, Palestinian teenager Ali Abu Alia was killed by Israeli occupation soldiers, shot in the abdomen. It was during a demonstration at his home town of Al Mughayyir, against a nearby Jewish Israeli settlement expansion. According to Defense for Children International Palestine he was on the sideline, merely “observing clashes” .
Now if you read the Israeli military statement on this, as featured in the Haaretz report, it seems to get really complex, as it were:
The Israeli military said that there were riots in the area, but denied using live fire. Rioters used burned tires and tried to block the road, an IDF spokesperson said, and Israeli forces responded with rubber bullets and “Ruger” guns, which have a low muzzle speed.
So the logic, as formulated here, is that the “Ruger” gun is not “live fire”, since it has “low muzzle speed”.
Let’s not be bamboozled by this Israeli military BS. The Ruger 10/22 regularly applied by the Israeli military to “suppress demonstrations” is lethal ammunition, with a bullet speed of about 1.080 feet (330 meters) per second – just about the speed of sound. Alright, it’s not as fast as for example the M-16 which goes at 2.800 FPS, but I’m sure none of us want to be a guinea pig for the testing of what happens when a Ruger bullet hits one’s abdomen.
It is interesting that Haaretz’s piece does not frontally counter the military claim. It does, however, link “Ruger” to its own coverage from 2018, titled “Israel Police Refuse to Reveal Protocol on Use of Controversial Sniper Rifles”:
In response to petition by Israeli Arab law center, police reveal a heavily censored document, redacting parts relating to use of supposedly ‘non-lethal’ Ruger rifle. Several Palestinians, including children, were killed by Ruger fire.
Israeli human rights NGO B’Tselem have been on this repeatedly. From a 2015 report:
Military steps up use of live 0.22 inch bullets against Palestinian stone-throwers… Two-Twos are live ammunition whose impact is less severe than that of “ordinary” bullets (5.56 mm caliber), yet even so they can be lethal and inflict serious injuries. Two-Twos are fired with a 10/22 Ruger rifle, which is often equipped with an integral suppressor, or from a specially converted M4 rifle (“a shortened M16”). Use of this weapon has elicited controversy even within the Israeli military: in 2001, the head of the security department in the Operations Directorate wrote that the Ruger cannot be considered a non-lethal weapon and may be used only in circumstances that justify live fire. In view of the large number of people hit and even killed by 0.22 bullets early in the second intifada, use of this ammunition was suspended from 2001 to 2008. In the time since use of this ammunition was renewed, B’Tselem has documented the deaths of at least two people from these bullets; however, the real number may be higher, as it is difficult to establish whether a person was killed by these bullets or “ordinary” live ammunition, which is very similar in caliber.
So, let’s summarize.
The Israeli military has reapplied the use of lethal ammunition which it had earlier suspended. The military itself had deemed that the weapon cannot be considered “non-lethal” – in other words, this is lethal ammunition, used against civilian protesters. Like in the Gaza turkey-shootings – or “ducks” as the Israeli snipers call Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
US congresswoman Betty McCollum, who has been a staunch champion of the rights of Palestinian children, condemned the killing as a “grotesque state-sponsored killing”. She added:
I urge the incoming Biden administration to fully investigate and verify to the American people that no US taxpayer-funded military aid to Israel provided material assistance enabling this taking of a child’s life.
Well, of course US taxpayer-funded military aid to Israel was involved. And the Israeli army statement betrayed precisely which ammunition was applied.
Ali Abu Alia, may his beautiful young soul rest in eternal peace, does not care about “muzzle speeds”. That little bullet got him, and it’s over for him. The “only democracy” murdered him, slowly.
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