Loading ...Bereaved Palestinian father fights for justice in US
The father of a Palestinian teen shot dead by an Israeli soldier in 2014 met with officials from the US State Department on Thursday, 6 August to demand justice for his son.
The meeting was one of many stops for Siam Nuwara’s month-long tour of the United States to bring attention to the fight for justice for his son, 17-year-old Nadim Nuwara, to anybody who will listen.
Nadim was gunned down on 15 May 2014 by an Israeli border patrol officer in the West Bank village of Beitunia.
Israeli soldiers had surrounded the area to suppress protests near the Ofer military prison, where Palestinians had gathered to commemorate Nakba Day, the anniversary of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948.
About an hour after Nadim was shot, an Israeli sniper shot dead unarmed 16-year-old Muhammad Abu al-Thahir in the same location.
Both killings were captured on video from several different angles, revealing there were no protests or threats in the vicinity during either boy’s slaying.
Siam Nuwara spoke to The Electronic Intifada just hours after his State Department visit.
He was wearing the same clothes he wore to the meeting, jeans and a black t-shirt adorned with a photo of Nadim beneath the message “Justice for Nadeem.”
“I usually wear a suit, but I wanted to represent my son today,” said Nuwara.
Nuwara expressed optimism about the conversation he had with Oni Blair, director of Near Eastern Affairs at the State Department, and Christopher Russell, a US foreign affairs officer. His story and demand for accountability seemed to resonate, he said, and at the end of the meeting the State Department representatives hugged him, promising to do all they could to hold Israel accountable for Nadim’s murder.
Due to the international attention the videotaped killings garnered, the US has been unusually outspoken about the incident. But harsh words mean very little as the US continues to unconditionally furnish Israel with weapons and diplomatic cover for its crimes against Palestinians.
It’s not as though Nadim’s murder was not an isolated incident. Amnesty International has concluded that the Israeli army uses live ammunition against Palestinians, including children, “as a matter of policy.” So it’s no surprise that those who pull the trigger are shielded from accountability by a discriminatory system of near total impunity for violence targeting Palestinians.
According to the Israeli human rights group Yesh Din, just 1.4 percent of Palestinian complaints filed against Israeli soldiers result in indictments.
One struggle
Nuwara was also scheduled to visit St. Louis to meet with protesters involved in the uprising sparked last year by the murder of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown by white police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri.During the one-year anniversary of Brown’s murder, Nuwara met with the families of Michael Brown and Vonderrit Myers, a Black teen killed by St. Louis police in October, as well as several activists from Black Lives Matter. He posted video of his time in St. Louis to YouTube, which can be viewed below.
Source: electronicintifada.net