Israeli private security guard shoots, kills Palestinian teen

December 8th, 2021

Awake Goy

A Palestinian teenage boy was shot and killed on Monday by an Israeli security guard at a checkpoint in the northern occupied West Bank.

According to Defense for Children International – Palestine (DCIP), 15-year-old Mohammad Nidal Younis Mousa from Nablus was shot and killed by a private Israeli security guard in the early hours of Monday morning during an alleged car ramming attack.

Israeli defense officials claimed that Mousa, after reportedly getting in an argument with his father, took his father’s car and drove it to the Jabar military checkpoint near Tulkarem, where around 1:20 am he then allegedly “rammed it at high speed over a sidewalk and through concrete protective barriers at the inspection post at the checkpoint, striking the guard,” Haaretz reported.

According to Haaretz, the security guard who shot Mousa was the head guard on site. The injured guard was reportedly in “serious but stable condition, suffering injuries to his head, chest and limbs but was conscious.”

Meanwhile Mousa was taken to an Israeli medical center where he succumbed to his wounds hours later.

DCIP reported that shortly after Mousa left his house, his family began looking for him and reported that he was missing to Palestinian security forces. Around 4:00 am, Israeli forces raided the Mousa family home, “ransacking the house and interrogating Mohammad’s mother and six-year-old brother,” DCIP said.

It was only at around 7:30am — more than 7 hours after he left the house — that Mousa’s family was notified that he had been shot and was in critical condition. At around 10:00 am, the family was told that he succumbed to his wounds.

“Israeli forces routinely unlawfully kill Palestinian children with impunity, using excessive force and unjustified intentional lethal force,” Ayed Abu Eqtaish, accountability program director at DCIP said in a statement.

“If a child is suspected of committing a criminal act, they should be apprehended in accordance with international standards and afforded due process of law.”

According to DCIP, Mousa is the 17th Palestinian minor to be killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank and East Jerusalem this year.

In Mousa’s case, however, the teen was killed by a private security guard, not an Israeli soldier or police officer. According to the Israeli research center Who Profits, at least 14 checkpoints in the West Bank, dozens of checkpoints in occupied East Jerusalem, and countless more settlement security posts are manned by private security firms.

“The private security guards employed by these companies have policing powers, bear arms and are entitled to use force in performing their duties. Unlike soldiers who are monitored by army investigators, there is no automatic internal review mechanism for incidents involving the use of force for security companies, according to news media reports,” the report said.

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