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Jan. 3, 2021
Bashar Hamad, 16, of the Qalandiyah refugee camp and Yousef Taha, 17, of Kafr Qaddum don’t know each other. But they form part of the unseen statistic of Palestinians shot and wounded by Israeli soldiers in the West Bank last year.
Of the total, 632 were wounded by sponge- or rubber-tipped metal bullets, including 127 minors, while 155 were wounded by live fire, including 28 minors. And that’s on top of the 1,513 who were suffocated by tear gas and needed treatment on the spot or at a clinic, among them 195 minors.
The two teens have something else in common: The soldiers’ bullets hit them in the head. Bashar lost his right eye and was given a temporary prosthetic eye covered by a bandage; he’s now waiting to get his permanent prosthetic eye – maybe in Jordan, maybe in Israel. Yousef suffers from skull fractures, incessant headaches and a loss of balance.