On Saturday, nine-year-old Malek Issa from Isawiya in East Jerusalem was shot in the face with a sponge-tipped bullet by Israeli Border Police forces. He is now in hospital and may lose an eye.
Four short comments on the incident: (thread)
Four short comments on the incident: (thread)
a)This horrific incident won’t surprise those who follow news from E.Jerusalem. Issa isn't the 1st child to be hospitalized by Israeli forces.Mohamed Shtiwi,14,was shot by a rubber bullet in the head.Abd alRahman Shtiwi, 10, is in a vegetative state after being shot by live fire.
b) If you weren’t aware of that, it’s worth taking a moment to think about why this kind of thing doesn’t make it into the mainstream media (Israel or abroad). It’s a story about a 9-y-o who may lose his eye, which raises serious questions about police behavior and tactics...
...and it didn’t even get mentioned in the print editions of some of Israel’s most widely distributed newspapers, ‘Israel HaYom’ and ‘Maariv’. Malek Issa is the face of Israel’s conduct in East Jerusalem, and most newspaper-readers in Israel will never even know of his existence.
c)It’s not a coincidence. Isawiya is proof of what annexing the oPt looks like in practice. E.Jerusalem was annexed only to be both financially neglected by the authorities & at the same time subject to intense punitive action by police ‘demonstrating their presence’.Just like...
what we did serving in oPt.Police presence has not made the area more secure; it's only led to tension,violence and innocent people being hurt.This is what E.J'lm looks like after decades of annexation,& all the evidence shows that annexing the rest of the oPt will be much worse.
4) Why have police forces been entering Isawiya for almost a year in order to ‘demonstrate their presence’? As the police themselves are saying - no reason at all. Don’t believe us? Listen to them yourself (clip published last year in an exposé for @haaretzcom by @nirhasson):
