Children boycott first day of school after israeli soldiers shoot and kill classmate

02.09.09 - 11:01

Kristen Ess - The new school year began on a tragic note with the killing of Mohammad Riad Nayef. Children in the central West Bank’s Jalazone Refugee Camp boycotted the first day.

Israeli soldiers occupying Beit El Settlement in the central West Bank’s Ramallah gunned him down on Monday evening. He was reported dead at Jerusalem’s Hadassah Hospital early Tuesday.

His mother did not get to send her 14 year old to school on the first day of the new academic year. Instead, she sent her son to the cemetery on the first of September.

The boy was the second of six children. His family has his photograph mounted in their living room.

Mohammad Nayef is the son of the late Fateh official in northern Ramallah’s Jalazone Refugee Camp, Riad Nayef. He too was killed by Israeli forces, but before his death had served as the leader of the Palestinian Authority’s General Intelligence Service in Birzeit, the town known for its university.

During yesterday’s funeral for the young boy, Fateh members spoke as people who knew and loved him.

Mohammad was shot by an Israeli soldier occupying the central West Bank governorate of Ramallah. That soldier was in a sniper tower on the outskirts of Jalazone Refugee Camp’s prep school and the encroaching Beit El Settlement.

This boy was not the first to be killed in the area; in fact four have been, along with some 40 wounded. From the same place Israeli forces have arrested approximately 200 boys who they accused of “planning attacks” on the settlement or sniper tower. The prep school area is known as a popular spot to throw stones toward the settlement.

Although it was the first day of the new school year, children in Jalazone Refugee Camp decided to strike in honor of their fallen classmate. source

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