Friday, September 30, 2022

CHASED TO DEATH
Palestinians mourn boy who died 'of fear' of Israeli troops









Israel Palestinian Mourners gather around the body of 7-year-old Palestinian boy Rayan Suleiman, during his funeral in the West Bank village of Tequa near Bethlehem Friday, Sept. 30, 2022. The U.S. State Department has called on Israel to open a "thorough" investigation into the mysterious death of the boy, who collapsed and died shortly after Israeli soldiers came to his home in the occupied West Bank. Relatives said he had no previous health problems and accused the army of scaring the child to death. The army called the death a tragedy and said its soldiers were not to blame. 
(AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)


Fri, September 30, 2022 

TEQUA, West Bank (AP) — A throng of men clutching the body of a 7-year-old Palestinian boy marched through a town in the occupied West Bank toward the child's final resting place on Friday, a day after his parents say he died from fear of Israeli soldiers.

Rayan Suleiman, with bright eyes and a backpack emblazoned with an animated race car, was walking home from school on Thursday when his family says he and his brothers were chased by Israeli soldiers. After the boys bolted home, the troops banged furiously on the door and threatened to arrest the children, their parents say. Just moments later, Rayan, the youngest of the three brothers, was dead.

The story shot across the occupied West Bank, providing an emotive focus for fury over Israel’s military tactics and what Palestinians contend is their victimization by the Israeli occupation.

The State Department demanded an investigation. The European Union said it was “shocked” by Rayan’s “tragic death.”

Photographs of Rayan’s tiny, lifeless body under a sheet in the hospital became a potent new symbol overnight, threatening to fuel already heightened tensions just a day after the deadliest Israeli raid since the military escalated its crackdown on the West Bank earlier this year.

Like many such incidents in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Rayan’s death has sparked contention. The Israeli military has denied any violence in the interaction with Rayan’s family, saying that just one officer came to the family’s house after spotting children throwing stones.

Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, a military spokesman, said the officer spoke in a “very calm manner” with Rayan's father and left.

“There was no violence, no entry into the house,” Hecht said.

Yasser Suleiman, Rayan's father, told The Associated Press on Friday that Rayan collapsed after he saw the Israeli soldiers who chased him appear at his front door. Suleiman said he was trying to reason with the soldiers, who accused his children of throwing rocks. The soldiers threatened to return at night and arrest all three children, including Rayan's older brothers, ages 8 and 10, Suleiman said. Amid the chaos, Rayan fell on the floor, unconscious.

Doctors at a hospital in Beit Jala, a Palestinian town south of Jerusalem, could not resuscitate him. A pediatric specialist, Dr. Mohamed Ismail, said Rayan was healthy and had no previous medical conditions.

“The most probable scenario of what happened is that under stress, he had excess adrenaline secretion, which caused the increase of his heart beat,” Ismail said. “He developed cardiac arrest.”

A forensic doctor is currently conducting an autopsy on Rayan.

In the meantime on Friday, a crowd of mourners thronged his body outside his stone house in Tequa, a Palestinian town that borders an Israeli settlement with some 4,000 residents.

“God is great!” they shouted, some jogging to stay ahead of his small body on the wooden pallet. “Oh Rayan, light of the eye!"

Palestinians say boy dies of heart failure during chase by Israeli troops

Thu, September 29, 2022 

JERUSALEM (Reuters) -A Palestinian boy died of heart failure while being chased by Israeli soldiers in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, his father said, an account disputed by the army while Washington voiced sorrow at the incident and encouraged an investigation.

Seven-year-old Rayyan Suleiman was coming home from school with other pupils in the village of Tuqu when troops gave chase, and he "died on the spot from fear," his father Yasser said in a video circulated on social media.

A medical official who inspected the body told Reuters that it bore no sign of physical trauma and that the death appeared consistent with heart failure. The Palestinian Foreign Ministry condemned the incident as "an ugly crime" by Israel.

An Israeli military spokesman said troops were in the vicinity at the time to search for Palestinians suspected of fleeing into the village after having thrown rocks at motorists.

"An initial inquiry shows no connection between the searches conducted by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) in the area and the tragic death of the child," the spokesman said.

Palestinian residents said there was no stone-throwing at the time. The military spokesman added that "the details of the incident are under review."

In Washington, deputy State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel said, "The U.S. is heartbroken to learn of the death of an innocent Palestinian child."

"We support a thorough and immediate investigation into the circumstances surrounding the child's death" alongside an Israeli military probe, he added.

(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi, Dan Williams and Simon Lewis; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Cynthia Osterman)

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