Target practice in refugee camp near Tulkarem

In the week of school exams, one young boy was not able to complete his. Hassan Kusido, aged 15, was one of three teenagers at Nur Shams refugee camp, Tulkarem, who on Sunday morning 24 May was badly injured by Israeli soldiers in what seems to have been a petty exercise in target practice.

All three boys had been shot at near the alley which leads to the camp from the main road, it seems by soldiers who were apparently in the woods on the other side of the road from them. Hassan had to have surgery on his foot and was the only one who had to stay in hospital. His parents were at his bedside when we got there, together with Abdul Karim of B'Tselem. This is what Hassan told us: 

"I was coming back from school at Tulkarem by bus. Ahead of us on the main road, a military jeep was driving slowly, not allowing any other vehicles to overtake. At the entrance to the camp, the bus stopped, people got out and gathered at the entrance to the camp. The army jeep went to the east side of the road. The soldiers came over to the west side. I stood among other people watching. We were nowhere near them and they did not harm us. There were probably about 50 of us there. 

We did not know this, but there must have been soldiers in the woods. The next thing I knew, there was the sound of shots and there was blood coming from my foot. I tried to escape towards the camp. I told a neighbour that I had a bullet in my leg. He took me in a car to the hospital."

The shots also injured two other boys in the next twenty minutes - the first in the lower leg and the second, in his forehead. There seems to have been no reason for the soldiers in the woods to feel any need to defend themselves. The shots and the angle they came at, suggested rather a soldier practicing, even having a bet with his friends: using the boys as target practice.

With the family's permission, we took notes and photographs in the hospital. For Abdul Karim, this was one of many cases he has had to deal with. For us – and more importantly, for the family - it is a shocking story. Ma'an News covered the incident in Monday's news. B'Tselem and ICRC will both be filing reports. As for Hassan, he will have to take his exams next year.