TEL AVIV — A 16-year-old Palestinian boy was shot dead at point-blank range by an Israeli soldier in the occupied West Bank on Saturday, the latest in a string of lethal shootings that bookend a particularly violent year for the enclave.
Ryan Muhammad Abdul Qader Abu Mualla was killed in the northern town of Qabatiya, during a raid by the Israeli military, Palestinian officials said in several statements on Saturday.
The Israeli military said in a statement on the same day that a “terrorist” had thrown a “block” at several soldiers, and they then shot and “eliminated" the block thrower.
But CCTV video appeared to show Mualla was not throwing a block or holding one.
The video, which Reuters obtained from the owner of a security camera, begins six minutes before the shooting and shows relatively empty streets.
Two Israeli soldiers, one crouching and one standing, can be seen on a lit street corner at dark. A third soldier appears to take position in an adjacent street leading to the same corner.
Three seconds before the shooting, a person appears walking down the street, and as he reaches the corner, the crouching soldier opens fire. The person then falls to the ground.
While the incident is partially obscured because of the angle of the camera and the low light, the video does not appear to show the person who was shot throwing a block or holding one.
Kamel Zakarneh, who told Reuters he had witnessed the shooting, also disputed the claim that something had been thrown. “Who said that he was throwing stones, it is not true,” he said. “They shot him with four bullets the second they saw him.”
The Palestinian Red Crescent said in a statement Saturday that Israeli security forces had “prevented its medical crews from reaching the injured youth while he was critically injured.”
The Israel Defense Forces did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for comment on the video or on the Red Crescent's statement.
From Oct. 7, 2023 — the day Hamas launched its terror attack on Israel from the Gaza Strip — to this November, Israeli forces and settlers killed 1,030 Palestinians, including 223 children, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
While fighting in the Gaza Strip has subsided considerably since a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas went into effect 10 weeks ago, there has been a spike in violence in the West Bank as Israel’s government has continued to approve new Jewish settlements in the territory. On Monday the country’s Security Cabinet approved 19 more.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said last week that more Palestinians were attacked in the West Bank in October than in any month since it started keeping records. The West Bank is home to 2.7 million Palestinians who have limited self-rule under Israeli military occupation.
Most world powers deem the West Bank settlements, on land Israel captured in a 1967 war, illegal. Numerous U.N. Security Council resolutions have called on Israel to halt all settlement activity.
The Israeli government disputes that its settlements are unlawful and cites biblical and historical ties to the land.
After Mualla and another 22-year-old man was killed on Saturday, Hamas said in a statement that their deaths necessitated “an intensification of popular anger and resistance to confront this escalating aggression.”
