Lying in his hospital bed, Amir, age 15, managed a faint smile. The bullet that struck his back had exited through his right shoulder, grazing his temple on its way out. The teenager, whose parents preferred not to disclose his last name, was lucky. Outside his hospital window, three lifeless bodies were removed from ambulances. Murshed Hamayel, 35 years old, Mohamad Al-Naji, 21 years old, and Lotfi Baerat, 18 years old, had been killed just hours earlier, on Wednesday, June 25, during a brutal raid carried out by Jewish settlers on the village of Kafr Malik, located 17 kilometers northeast of Ramallah in the central occupied West Bank. The army arrived at the scene and opened fire.
Eight other wounded Palestinians were brought with Amir to the same facility shortly before midnight. Outside the emergency entrance, men collapsed in tears. Others climbed into ambulances to caress the faces of the dead. The bodies were already wrapped in the Palestinian flag. “The settlers coordinate on WhatsApp before they attack, they are monsters. Because of them, two days earlier, one of my friends died,” stammered Amir Birat, 15, still in shock.
It was on Wednesday, the day of Moataz Hamayel’s funeral – a common name in the village – a 13-year-old also killed by Israeli gunfire on June 23, that the Jewish assailants, numbering more than 100 according to witnesses, returned to sow terror. “They arrived around 7 pm, 7:30 pm, started torching cars and attacking our homes. We tried to defend ourselves with stones and our bare hands. What else could we do?” sighed Hamdi, 27, lying in the same room as Amir, his left leg wounded by gunfire.
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