OIC calls for independent probe into Israel’s killing of Palestinian toddler

Israeli soldiers on Thursday shot in the head of two-and-a-half-year-old Mohammad Haytham Tamimi in the village of Nabi Salah, near Ramallah, when he and his father, Haytam Tamimi, were in their parked car outside their home.

Mohammad suffered critical injuries in the head while his father received chest injuries. The toddler was taken to Sheba Hospital, where he remained on life support until he was pronounced dead on Monday morning.

In a statement following the shooting, the Israeli military claimed that its soldiers mistook the Palestinian toddler and his father for Palestinian fighters.

The OIC “has condemned the continuing crimes perpetrated by the Israeli occupation forces, the latest of which was the heinous crime that claimed the life of the two-year-old Palestinian child, Mohammed Al-Tamimi, who was shot in the head,” read a statement by the 57-member intergovernmental organization on Tuesday.

The Jeddah-based organization also stressed that it “considers that this crime is one in a series of continued Israeli crimes against the Palestinian people, including children, with no less than 28 children having been martyred at the hands of the Israeli occupation since the beginning of this year.”

The OIC further called for opening “an independent international investigation into this crime.”

Israeli forces launch raids on various cities of the occupied West Bank on an almost daily basis under the pretext of detaining what is called “wanted” Palestinians. The raids usually lead to violent confrontations with residents.

The United Nations marked 2022 as the deadliest year for Palestinians in the West Bank in 16 years. Israeli forces killed at least 171 Palestinians in the West Bank and occupied East al-Quds last year, including more than 30 children. At least 9,000 others were injured as well.

According to a report by Middle East Eye, a UK-based news website, Israeli forces and settlers have killed at least 119 Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem al-Quds since January and a further 34 in the besieged Gaza Strip.

A total of 28 children have been shot dead by Israeli soldiers since the beginning of the year, including seven in the Gaza Strip, the official Palestinian Wafa news agency said in a report on Monday.