TEL AVIV – In an extreme case of life imitating art, footage of a 12-year-old Palestinian who Hamas claimed was shot dead by IDF snipers on Friday during the Gaza border protests has emerged showing the boy playing a “martyr” killed by the Israeli army.
The clip, which went viral on Palestinian social media earlier this month, shows Majdi al-Satari and his friends trying to infiltrate a fake border into Israel. “IDF soldiers” shoot al-Satari, who plays dead. He is placed on a stretcher, shrouded in a Palestinian flag and carried off by his friends.
Al-Satari was killed along with two other Gazans, 17-year-old Moumin al-Hams and 43-year-old Ghazi Abu Mustafa on Friday.
A witness said that al-Satari was about 100 meters away from the border fence watching two other Palestinians cut razor wire when he was shot in the head, AP reported.
Al-Satari was buried on Sunday. His mother burst into tears and said that the family had tried to dissuade Majdi from going to the protests.
“I don’t know what he did to them [the Israeli soldiers],” she said. “It’s his fate.”
“He is a child. He had no bullets or weapons,” the boy’s grandmother said. “He was standing like all children watching. They shot him from afar. Isn’t he a child? Why are they targeting children?”
The United Nations Special Coordinator for Middle East peace on Saturday condemned al-Satari’s death.
“Yesterday’s killing of a 12-year-old Palestinian boy by Israeli fire in Gaza is shocking and tragic,” Nickolay Mladenov wrote in a post on his social media accounts.
“Children are not a target! Too many lives have been lost,” he added. “It’s time for this to stop.”
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry has recorded 157 Palestinian deaths by Israeli fire since the violent border riots began in March, many of whom the terror group admitted were its members.
The IDF said around 7,000 Palestinians participated in violent riots in several locations along the border on Friday. Apart from the rocks hurled and tires burned, rioters attacked IDF soldiers with pipe bombs, Molotov cocktails and a grenade which fell short of the border.
The IDF has said it only uses live fire when the border fence is breached or when there are attacks on soldiers.
Last week, Palestinian snipers killed an IDF soldier, Staff Sgt. Aviv Levi.
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