He raised his head from the bottom of a rock to reveal the road and flee and his friends from the place they came to hike in. One of the Israeli occupation soldiers surprised him from a few meters away with a bullet that hit him in the head and paralyzed his movement, and from that moment on and the child Muhammad Shteiwi (15 years old) became his home hospitals and medical centers instead of school and playground Football, who dreams of becoming a star in him from his childhood.

Muhammad is one of the Palestinian children who monitored a human rights report prepared by the International Movement for Defense of Children - Palestine Branch a few days ago, their suffering due to the occupation, and confirmed the intention of the occupation soldiers to shoot them "to kill or hinder them."

We spared no effort in tracing the story of Muhammad, and we set out towards his home in the village of Kafr Qaddum in the northern West Bank to find that reality is a matter. The child now relies on one or two people to move from one place to another, and his body and the weight of his tongue to speak except for some words that help him to tell the truth of what happened With him when the occupation soldiers targeted him.

He tells Al-Jazeera Net that he and his friends were having fun in the park of their village when the occupation soldiers attacked them, so they took cover with a rock a few meters away, and when I raised my head to verify their presence, if a bullet penetrated my head and fainted.

To the right temple of his head, Muhammad raised his hand to point to a large socket caused by the bullet, and he circled him with thick hair and a hat to wear, and said, “My right body incision is completely paralyzed and I can barely move the rest of my organs.”

"I spent about 50 days traveling between Palestinian and Israeli hospitals, and I underwent several surgeries, and I am waiting for a skull implant," he added, seeming tired of speaking, which is the hope awaiting him and his family.

The boy, Muhammad Shteiwi, indicates the location of the bullet injury, where his skull was damaged (Al-Jazeera)

The soldiers could have arrested him or shot him in the foot and not his head. “If one of them reached out his hands, I would grab the children,” says Moayad Aref, 67, the village nurse who accompanied us to the house of the child Muhammad and witnessed the moment he was injured.

Aref adds that the strange thing is that on that day (January 30, 2020) there were no confrontations or marches like the one that takes place every week, and the children did not take any work that angered the soldiers who were monitoring the area.

He confirms that the occupation soldiers intended to “kill or disable the children,” and says that while the boy was being transported to the hospital, an Israeli security man joined them in his private vehicle and drove them to the entrance to the nearby “Karni Shomron” settlement and held them for about half an hour. The injured was bleeding and did not give him assistance.

The nurse Arif and the family of the boy Khaled deny the soldiers ’claim that Muhammad was hit by a stone. They assert that it was a" rubber-coated metal bullet, "and that the Israeli doctor who treated him" took it out of his head and showed it to them. "

Complete paralysis

Like Muhammad, we found the child Abd al-Rahman Shteiwi (11 years) sitting on his wheelchair, which also turns into a bed. Getting up and sitting became difficult for him after he was completely paralyzed as a result of being hit by a bullet "explosive murmur" that penetrated his head and shattered inside him into about 150 shrapnel.

Abdel-Rahman's older brother Tamer Shteiwi tried to raise him to show us closely the suffering of his brother, who has so far undergone 6 surgeries in his head and intestines from which he is fed after losing the ability to eat through his mouth. He says, "My brother transformed into a body and only breaths."

The family of the child Abd al-Rahman rejects any allegations that the occupation leads to shooting him in this way, and says that the soldiers could have arrested him or even shot him in the feet and not his head if their goal was not to kill, especially since he did not pose a threat to them.

The same is confirmed by Mourad Shteiwi, the coordinator of the popular resistance in Kafr Qaddum, and he tells Al-Jazeera Net that there are many evidences of the occupation’s intention to target citizens, especially children, with its bullets, such as bringing snipers, targeting the upper areas of the body, and incursion into the village.

In addition to the use of "Roger" type live ammunition, "explosive rumble" and rubber-coated metal bullets, which is the most dangerous because it is "fired from close distances and deliberately by the occupation soldiers."

Kafr Qaddum has recorded the death of a citizen and more than 150 injuries with live ammunition since the start of the peaceful marches, a large number of them children, in addition to dozens of injuries per week with tear gas and rubber-coated metal bullets, which caused the disability of about 10 citizens.

The nurse Muayyad Aref helps the injured Muhammad Shteiwi to get himself up (Al-Jazeera)

Arrest ... another punishment

On top of their injuries, the Israeli occupation arrests dozens of Palestinian children every month, and according to the Palestinian Prisoners Club, Israel has arrested 64 children, and 170 children are now in detention cells.

The most difficult one was the arrest of the 16-year-old boy, Amal Orabi Nakhleh, a few days ago at the hands of an Israeli special unit that raided the village of Birzeit near Ramallah in the central West Bank, where the Israeli military prosecution refused the judge’s decision to release him due to his poor health and demanded that he be transferred to administrative detention.

The boy Nakhleh, according to his father, Muammar Orabi, suffers from a rare disease called "Myasthenia Gravis", which resulted from the removal of a tumor from his lungs 4 months ago, which requires treatment every 4 hours to prevent complications from convulsion, difficulty breathing and swallowing food.

The director of the International Movement for Defense of Children - Palestine Branch, lawyer Khaled Qazmar, said in his interview with Al-Jazeera Net that about 60% of children arrested by the occupation are subjected to various types of torture: physical, psychological and solitary isolation.

"Killing or hindering children" is the goal of the occupation, according to Qazmar. This is what happened with the child Bashar Hamad from Qalandia camp a few days ago when his eyes blew, and he is one of 3 similar cases they were injured during the recent past period.

The rubber-coated metal bullet that hit the boy, Muhammad Shteiwi, which doctors removed from his head (Al-Jazeera)

Under immunity

It is not understood from the occupation’s targeting of children in this way except that it “wants to influence the growth of the generation and determine its future,” according to Gazzmar. In most cases, there is no justification for the use of weapons, whether in terms of distance, the victim and the motives of shooting even if the bullets are rubber-coated metal.

He explained that the use of this type of (rubber) bullets is inconsistent with the standards of the Israeli army itself and not only international law, as it is fired from long distances in order not to cause harm.

Moreover, the occupying army hides any evidence incriminating the soldiers, and provides them protection at the political level so that they are not legally held to account.

Kazmar says that they and many human rights and legal institutions have what they owe the Israeli war criminals at the level of public opinion, the media and the United Nations, and enough to prosecute them, but the absence of "international political will" encourages the occupation to commit crimes.