3-Year-Old Palestinian Boy Shot in the Head Dies

On Monday, Muhammad Haitham al Tamimi, a 3-year-old Palestinian boy, died in hospital. He was shot in the head by an Israeli soldier on Friday in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh.

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The boy was traveling with his parents in a car when a bullet fired hit him in the head. The projectile also wounded his father in the shoulder.

In an attempt to justify what happened, the Israeli occupying forces said that the shooting occurred because Israeli troops stationed at a military post near the Neveh Tzuf settlement returned fire from Palestinian "assailants".

The Palestinian boy was taken in critical condition to Sheba hospital near Tel Aviv, where he had been on life support since Friday. His father was treated at a Ramallah hospital.

"The car was hit by gunshots and I tried to stop it. I felt a pain in my shoulder. When I looked at my son, I found that he had been shot in the head and had fallen off the car seat, bleeding," Haitham told Tamimi, the father of the murdered child.

"Nabi Saleh, a small village located northwest of Ramallah, has long been in the spotlight due to being the location of various demonstrations against the Israeli occupation in the West Bank. Because of this, it has been under heightened pressure from Israeli forces, who regularly carry out raids in the area," the Middle East Eye recalled.

In the first six months of this year, at least 156 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli troops. Among the victims of this systematic attack, the deadliest since the Second Intifada (2000-05), there are 21 minors.