Thousands gathered in the West Bank town of Silwad outside of Ramallah to bury Orwah Hammad, a 14-year old Palestinian-American from Louisiana who was killed by the Israeli army on Friday evening.
Hammad’s memorial was held at a local school to accommodate the out pouring of mourners, rather than at Silwad’s central mosque as customary. The front entrances of the town were still littered with burnt trash bins and rocks from the clash on Friday when the youth was killed. Hammad was enshrouded with flower wreaths as children from the village wept and prayed over his headstone. Hammad died in Ramallah public hospital after sustaining a gunshot wound to the neck and head during a demonstration against the killing of another Palestinian earlier in the week.
The funeral was delayed a day as so Hammad’s father who resides in New Orleans could travel to the West Bank. Hammad lived in New Orleans as well until the age of six when he relocated to the West Bank. The youth’s mother and extended family live in Silwad.
The State Department released a statement on Friday expressing its “deepest condolences” to the family of the deceased minor and called “for a speedy and transparent investigation, and will remain closely engaged with the local authorities, who have the lead on this investigation.”
The circumstances surrounding Hammad’s killing remain gray. The Israeli army asserts that the youth was throwing a Molotov cocktail at the time he was struck. The Israeli army told Reuters Hammad was shot because soldiers were attempting “to prevent an attack when they encountered a Palestinian man hurling a Molotov cocktail at them on the main road. They opened fire and confirmed a hit.” However, witnesses have told me that Hammad was throwing stones and not lobbing a petrol bomb.
The people who threw Mr. Klinghoffer into the sea knew Zionism would still be murdering their people with impunity long into the future . It’s a pity nobody did anything about it.
RIP, child of Palestine/America. My deepest condolences to his family and to the weeping people of Silwad.
(when does one ‘confuse’ a man with a child? i don’t believe the iof– ever. where’s the video? disappeared.)
Your photos are so powerful, Allison.
In the top one, the children’s faces look old and haunted beyond their young years.
if israeli snipers were not using live fire and were skilled enough to aim properly they could avoid the appearance they were hunting down kids by aiming for something other than their head, neck, heart, etc.
this the same military that claimed the boys killed on nakba day (shot thru the heart) were slaughtered while they were throwing stones while the video proved that was a lie. there’s no reason to believe the allegation hammad was ‘about’ to throw a molotov, it sounds like justification for a execution.
lying is a routine affair for the israeli military and believing those lies is routine for the US government. however the people are not so easily hoodwinked.
I hope our congress-members all come visit the grave site as part of their annual, all expenses paid trip to the Holy Land to see what their cowardice has achieved.
Israel’s actions are criminal; American cover for them is grotesque.