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by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies

Israeli soldiers shot and killed five Palestinians, including a 4 year old child, and kidnapped more than 285 Palestinians in April 2012 according to The International Solidarity Foundation for Human Rights (Tadamon).

The child, Aseel Ara’ra, 4, from Anata, near the West Bank city of Ramallah, was shot in the neck on October 25, 2011, and was left in a quadriplegic state before dying of her injuries last month.

The army shot and killed Hashem Misbah Sa’ad, 17, from ash-Shujaeyya neighbourhood, east of Gaza city, and separately Bilal Yousef As-Sa’ayda, 20, claiming that both young men approached the border fence.

Two more Palestinians were killed in the West Bank. One of the dead men, Rashad Shoukha, 28, was seriously wounded after the under-cover forces of the Israeli army broke into his home in Rammoun town, near Ramallah, and died of his wounds a week after he was injured. Fadi Zeitoun, from Beta village, near Nablus, was killed after a group of extremist settlers of the Yitzhar illegal settlement south of Nablus chased him with their guns while he was driving his tractor.

Israeli soldiers conducted dozens of invasions into the occupied territories in April, and kidnapped more than 285 residents, including dozens of women and children, and a number of former political prisoners who had previously spent years in Israeli prisons and detention centers. In the West Bank, soldiers kidnapped 45 children, and three female university students from the southern West Bank city of Hebron.

Tadamon attorney, researcher Ahmad Tubassy, strongly criticised the ongoing and escalating Israeli violations against the Palestinian people, especially the continuing violations against the political prisoners currently holding an open-ended hunger-strike and demanding their legitimate rights which are guaranteed under international Law.

He stated that targeting civilians, especially women and children, violates all international regulations, and the Fourth Geneva Convention to which Israel is a signatory.