Amira Hass: To Soldier X of the Armored Corps’ 77th Battalion, who shot and killed a boy named Yusef Abu Aker Shawamreh last Wednesday, When you were at dinner with your family last Friday night, did you tell them it was you and win approval from your father and mother? Or did you pick at your rice and eat your steak in silence? Did your commanding officers ask you how the deadly bullet you fired made a direct hit precisely in Yusef’s hip? Were you aiming at his legs and missed? Were you aiming at the air and missed? Did your commanders conclude that you need a refresher course on the firing range? Did you lose any sleep over Yusef? Or are you convinced that you followed an order like a good and loyal soldier, and that Yusef, who was born on December 15, 1999, and was 14 years and three months old when you shot him, was to blame? Do you realize that you committed a crime, or will it take you a few years until it sinks in? Your superior officers (right on up to the commander) are a lost cause. They eat their steak with gusto even when their orders take the life of a boy whose only crime was going out to pick tumble thistle, akub in Arabic, to help his family make a living. This is the time of year to pick tumble thistle, which, stripped of its thorns, is used in traditional recipes that pass from mother to daughter and from grandmother to granddaughter. Poor families receive five shekels, less than a dollar and a half, for every kilogram that children like Yusef harvest from the fields. You were stationed there in an ambush on Tuesday night. Your position faced the village of Deir al-Asal al-Fauqa, which was occupied in 1967. You weren’t far from the moshav that has been allocated to the evacuees from the Gaza Strip. Your ambush position was at the southeastern end of the Lachish region, which is on the site of Palestinian villages that we destroyed – Qubayba, Dawayima, Umm el-Shaqf and others. The inhabitants were expelled in 1948 and their descendants live in refugee camps in the Bethlehem area. Twelve-year-old Zahi and 17-year-old Muntaser, whom you arrested, said you were wearing black and your faces were masked. Only your eyes were visible. ...
Posted on: Tue, 25 Mar 2014 14:17:11 +0000
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