On Friday, 29 July 2022, at around 10:30 A.M., about 200 Palestinians marched from al-Mughayir, located northeast of Ramallah, towards the Allon Road, which runs east of the village. The marchers were protesting the establishment of outposts in the area and settler violence against Palestinians, which the settlers carry out with full state backing, often in front of soldiers and even with their participation.
Shortly before eleven o’clock, about 10 protesters, most of them adults, who were at the front of the march, reached the intersection with the Allon Road at the entrance to the village, and came across several soldiers who tried to disperse them. At the same time, about 30 protesters advanced to a point farther down the road and blocked it with rocks and tires they set on fire. They also threw stones at Israeli vehicles driving along the road, hitting several of them. After about 10 minutes, soldiers threw stun grenades at the protesters, and fired live rounds in the air and tear gas canisters in an attempt to drive them away.
In the meantime, more military vehicles arrived, as well as several cars with settlers, some of them armed. The soldiers and settlers got out and clashed with the protesters, pushing them to the side of the road and then further away, into the fields by the road. The soldiers again threw stun grenades and fired tear gas canisters at the demonstrators, as well as rubber-coated metal bullets and foam bullets. One protester, around 50 years of age, was hit in the chest by a foam bullet and taken away for treatment. At that point, the protesters and the settlers threw stones at each other.
At around 11:30 A.M., about 15 settlers, at least two of them armed, went to a nearby plot that has a vineyard at its center. One of the armed settlers hid in a dirt ditch behind a large boulder, and fired several shots at the protesters. Other settlers advanced further into the plot and threw stones at the protesters. At the same time, protesters who arrived at the plot from the other side threw stones at the settlers and at two or three soldiers standing nearby.
During the mutual stone-throwing, the soldiers and the settler fired at the stone-throwers, who fled. One of the protesters, Amjad Naser (15), was captured on video throwing stones at the vineyard, running away, getting shot and falling down. Naser was hit in the back by gunshots fired either by the settler or by the soldiers, and two other protesters were hit in the legs by the soldiers’ shots. All three were taken to hospital in Ramallah, where Naser died of his wounds shortly after. After the wounded protesters were taken away, Border Police officers and soldiers dispersed the remaining protesters by firing foam bullets and tear gas, partly using “Venom” launchers installed on the jeeps.
B’Tselem’s investigation could not determine whether the gunfire that killed Naser was fired by one of the soldiers in the vineyard or by the settler hiding in the ditch. Regardless of who issued the fatal fire, killing a 15-year-old boy who put no one’s life at risk is unlawful and unjustifiable.
Naser is the fifth person killed in the past two years in incidents in which armed settlers joined forces with soldiers against Palestinians. This type of collaboration has become a feature of the violence Israel metes out on Palestinians in the Occupied Territories on a daily basis. These incidents are not “exceptional” and the assailants are not “bad apples,” as Isn’treal prefers to portray them. This is a form of violence used by the Isn’treali apartheid regime to entrench Zionist supremacy on the ground and dispossess Palestinians of their lands.
That is why no one will be held to account for this unjustified killing, either – not the settlers or the soldiers, not the commanders of the operation, and not the top military and political echelons who shape the regime’s principles and practices every day.