Mohammed Tamimi
By Alison Weir
Many in Israel and mainstream media seem to consider slapping an Israeli soldier in the face a more notable offense than shooting a Palestinian child in the face.
A CNN report on Ahed Tamimi’s slap of an Israeli soldier did not mention that an Israeli soldier had just shot her young cousin in the face.
An Atlantic article that contained much valuable information about the situation nevertheless buried and minimized the shooting of a boy, mentioning it in one paragraph low in the story.
Below is some information many mainstream media are omitting:
Mohammed Tamimi is about 15 years old (some reports said he was 14). He was unarmed and posed no risk to anyone when an Israeli soldier a few meters away shot him in the face. The bullet entered Mohammed’s face below his nose. It broke his jaw and then lodged in his skull. According to a witness, “The blood was pouring from his face like a fountain.”
With difficulty due to Israel’s many military checkpoints on Palestinian land, the teen was eventually taken to a hospital, where he underwent a six-hour procedure involving seven surgeons. The doctors removed the bullet, reconstructed his jaw and put him into an artificial coma for 72 hours.
A Ha’aretz article reports: “The left side of his face is twisted, swollen, fragmented, scarred; there’s congealed blood by his nose, stitches in his face; one eye is shut, a seam line stretches across his whole scalp. A boy’s face turned scar-face. Some of his skull bones were removed in surgery and won’t be returned to their place for another six months.”
The fact that a soldier shot a boy in the face from close range would normally be the focus of a news story. Since this soldier was Israeli, the boy was Palestinian, and this kind of atrocity is a fairly frequent occurrence in Palestine, it was barely mentioned.
In fact, if Mohammed’s cousin hadn’t then slapped a heavily armed, combat-ready soldier invading her home (which had earlier been tear-gassed), almost no one would even know about Mohammed.
And now, instead of a soldier facing trial for shooting an unarmed boy in the face, it is a 16-year-old girl and her mother who are facing years in prison.
One high Israeli minister said they “should end their lives in jail.”
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