Thursday, May 28, 2009

No Smoke without Fire - the facts about the boy

After putting my last post on www.nowpublic.com yesterday, some amazing information came back to me from an anonymous person who corroborated what I had heard, with a news story naming the boy who was killed - Mohammad Ali Nuwwara, 16, from Al Jalazoun refugee camp in Ramallah. Thank-you anonymous person! (This is a great case study for how crowd-powered news can work).

Here it is, as reported on Al Jazeera. In fact, it doesn't change my story at all, except that the boy was 16 years old, instead of 9. No smoke without fire, as they say. And the director of the Dance festival played the incident down completely - which is why I didn't even have the boy's name. My focus was the dance festival. This sad incident being wrapped up in it is a bit shocking for us Westerners. Well, RIP, and here's hoping peace and the easy living we take for granted here in Dublin and in the Western world will come soon to those people. Let's hope Waiting for that won't be like Waiting for Godot (Is that naive? Utopian? Am I dreaming? Probably!). Please note that the report below doesn't allude to the fact that the poor boy was due to participate in a Contemporary Dance show entitled, significantly "Vertical Exile: West Bank Dreamerspass" two days after he was shot dead. No, just that he "allegedly" was throwing a molotov cocktail. So - dream on.

Also - I just want to emphasise what an amazing dance festival it is, celebrating life in the middle of all that terror and easy death. No wonder the Ramallah Contemporary Dance Festival Director didn't want to highlight such a negative incident. But, you know, it happened.

Palestinian youth killed near Ramallah

Saturday April 18, 2009 07:08 by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies

Israeli occupation terrorist soldiers shot and killed on Friday at night a Palestinian youth and wounded another near the West Bank city of Ramallah. The Israeli occupation terrorist army claimed that the youth attempted to hurl a Molotov cocktail at an Israeli military jeep. The incident raises the number of Palestinians killed on Friday to three.

The youth was identified as Mohammad Ali Nuwwara, 16, from Al Jalazoun refugee camp in Ramallah.

Medical sources at the Ramallah governmental hospital reported that Nuwwara was shot by a live round in his chest.

The sources added that another youth, identified as Mohammad Balaysha, 19, was injured by military fire.

The two came under Israeli military fire near Beit Eil Israeli settlements, north of Ramallah.

Israeli military sources claimed that the soldiers opened fire at Palestinian youths after they hurled Molotov cocktails against home in Beit Eil settlement, killing one and wounding another.

It is worth mentioning that a few months ago; a Palestinian youth was shot and killed in the same area. The army also claimed he attempted to hurl a Molotov cocktail at soldiers and settlers.

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