Days after an Israeli soldier shot a 3-year-old Palestinian boy in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said that the boy had passed away on Monday.
Despite efforts to save him, including helicopter transport to an Israeli hospital, Muhammad Haitham al-Tamimi passed away.
He was shot on Thursday night in the West Bank, north of Jerusalem, close to the Israeli town of Neveh Tzuf.
Haitham Tamimi, the child’s father, claimed that he was on his way to see his brother when he and Muhammad were shot.
“As soon as I started the car I heard gunshots and I saw the Israeli soldiers out of the military tower,” Tamimi told CNN.
“I looked at Muhammad and couldn’t believe what I saw. He was shot in the head and there was blood all over his body. I took him in my arms and then realized that I’m also shot in my right shoulder. People from the village came quickly, and they took us both with their cars. This is when Israeli ambulances and a helicopter came and took Muhammad to the Israeli hospital.”
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said its troops were firing back at gunmen shooting at Neveh Tzuf when they hit two Palestinians, a 3-year-old and a man.
IDF and Magen David Adom (MDA) emergency medical teams treated both of the victims, and succeeded in getting the child’s heart beating again, the MDA said at the time.
The child was then transported, ventilated and in unstable condition, by IDF helicopter to Sheba-Tel Hashomer hospital in Israel.
“The IDF regrets harm to non-combatants and is committed to doing everything in its power to prevent such incidents. The incident is under review,” the IDF said early Friday. The military did not immediately have a new statement in light of the death of the child, pointing CNN to the Friday statement.
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry Monday condemned the killing of Tamimi as “a heinous crime against humanity,” and demanded “an urgent international investigation into this crime and other crimes of killing Palestinian children.”
The child’s father was treated for his gunshot wound at a hospital in Ramallah and was released on Sunday.
The bullet wound, he said, was not hurting: “I feel no physical pain. the pain in my heart is way too big.”