Kafr Qaddoum, West Bank – Ten-year-old Abdul Rahman Yasser Shteiwi is in a coma and fighting for his life after he was shot in the head by Israeli soldiers with an exploding butterfly bullet during a protest march and clashes with Israeli soldiers on Friday in the Palestinian village of Kafr Qaddoum in the northern, Israeli-occupied Palestinian West Bank.
Every Friday residents of the village hold protests against Israel’s confiscation of village land that was expropriated for the adjacent Israeli settlement of Qadumim. Under international law all Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories are illegal.
A road that was formerly used by the villagers to get to the nearest local city of Nablus has been blocked by the Israeli authorities on security grounds, forcing the locals to use a longer alternative and circuitous route that adds kilometres and time on to the journey.
The villagers have been holding weekly protests since 2012, vowing to get their land back. But they have paid a high price for their continued defiance with many shot, wounded, arrested and imprisoned for their participation in the ongoing clashes.
During the protests dozens of mocking protesters have often forced heavily armed Israeli soldiers to flee as they are pelted with rocks and stones, a humiliating situation by any standards which is thought to have provoked a heavier than usual response.
Abdul Rahman Shteiwi, 10, before he was shot in the head. Picture supplied by the village of Kafr Qaddou
“We are used to the Israelis being tough but lately they have been getting more violent and using live ammunition in addition to the rubber-coated metal bullets and teargas they normally deploy,” Murad Shteiwi, an organiser of the protests told the African News Agency (ANA).
The Israelis denied using live ammunition to quell the protests stating that only rubber-coated bullets were used last Friday.
However, Dr Othman Othman, the head of Neurosurgery at Rafidia hospital in Nablus where the critically injured boy – who was not involved in the protests but merely observing according to the villagers - was rushed by ambulance, said that x-rays proved this untrue and said surgeons were forced to remove over 100 pieces of shrapnel from the boy's brain.
“He has a penetrating injury in the frontal lobe on the right side. The injury was severe and there are more than 100 fragments,” said Dr Othman.
“This is not a rubber bullet, this is a metal bullet. A rubber bullet will not enter because it does not have a sharp head. This is something that had a sharp head,” he added.
Villagers washing away the blood of Abdul Rahman Shteiwi, 10, after Israeli soldiers shot him in the head with a butterfly exploding bullet. Picture courtesy of Kafr Qaddoum village.
Unlike ordinary bullets explosive "butterfly bullets" explode upon impact, pulverising tissue, arteries and bone, while causing severe internal injuries, leaving massive gaping hole exit wounds the size of a fist - much larger than the entry wound. They are banned under international law.
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) has been accused of using this explosive bullet extensively in Gaza on protesters taking part in the Great March of Return protests near the Gaza-Israel border.
Doctors without Borders (Medesins Sans Frontieres – MSF) reported during one particularly bloody day in Gaza last year in which dozens of mostly unarmed protesters were shot dead that almost half of the 500 wounded people they treated had injuries where the bullet had literally destroyed tissue after having pulverised the bone, according to Marie-Elisabeth Ingres, Head of Mission of MSF in Palestine.
“These patients will need to have very complex surgical operations and most of them will have disabilities for life. Managing these injuries is very difficult. Apart from regular nursing care, patients will often need additional surgery, and undergo a very long process of physiotherapy and rehabilitation. A lot of patients will keep functional deficiencies for the rest of their life,” said Ingres.
Many of the mostly young men shot with this explosive bullet were subsequently forced to have leg amputations leaving hundreds crippled for life.
An exploding "butterfly bullet". Picture courtesy of Haitham Khatib.
Meanwhile, Abdul Rahman remains in a coma with his life in the balance as he lies in hospital hooked up to tubes and pipes, surrounded by his distraught family. Should he pull through he might have to live with severe brain damage.
According to an Israeli spokesman, however, the soldiers were forced to use “rubber bullets” after the villagers rioted, threw rocks and rolled burning tyres, "endangering the lives of the soldiers".