Al Jazeera News :
The night before 15-year-old Arkan Mizhar was killed by Israeli forces, he kept telling his father Thaer how much he loved him, as if he sensed that he would not live another day.
Thaer last spoke with his son over a WhatsApp video call on Sunday night, since Arkan was staying overnight with his 78-year-old grandmother in the same Dheisheh refugee camp to help take care of her.
“I swear I love you,” Arkan told his father, showing him what he had bought for Ghassan, his younger brother.
“I bought him three types of ice cream and chips, so you don’t say that I don’t like my younger brother,” Arkan told Thaer.
“Then he repeated how much he loves me over and over again. I asked him what’s wrong, but he kept saying ‘nothing, but I just swear
I love you’,” Thaer recounted to Al Jazeera.
The following morning Thaer received a call informing him at first that Arkan had been shot in the leg, “to avoid horrifying” him. But as he rushed back to the camp, his gut feeling that his son had in fact been killed only grew stronger.
Israeli forces had shot Arkan in the chest during confrontations before dawn that day as the soldiers raided the camp to arrest youth. The camp is located just south of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank.
His family describes Arkan as an active, social and hardworking student who dreamed of studying mechanics in Germany to become an electrician or car mechanic. He had just finished the ninth grade and was enrolled to attend a nearby industrial high school in September.
At the young age of 11, he had already learned how to make sofas and chairs. Noticing his son’s natural talent, Thaer set up a workshop for him a few years ago.
“He was always smiling and his face always happy and welcoming,” Thaer said of his son.
Growing up the second-eldest of seven kids in a poor family, Arkan was always a big help, his uncle Abdel Hameed Mizhar told Al Jazeera. During the holy month of Ramadan, he sold fruits and vegetables from a cart to help provide for the family.
“I wish that Arkan, my nephew, could be the last martyr from the Palestinian nation that seeks freedom and peace,” Abdel Hameed Mizhar said.
Residents of Dheisheh say Israeli forces began raiding the camp as they regularly do, just before the dawn prayer around 3:30am to arrest youth and began “heavily” firing tear gas, stun grenades and live ammunition.
According to researchers from Defence for Children International – Palestine (DCIP), Arkan was shot with a single live bullet near his heart, which exited through his back. He was in the main alleyway entrance next to the camp’s main road where the confrontations were taking place when he was shot.
His autopsy revealed that he was most likely shot from a short distance of approximately 10 to 15 metres, said Ayed Abu Eqtaish, accountability program director at DCIP.
The night before 15-year-old Arkan Mizhar was killed by Israeli forces, he kept telling his father Thaer how much he loved him, as if he sensed that he would not live another day.
Thaer last spoke with his son over a WhatsApp video call on Sunday night, since Arkan was staying overnight with his 78-year-old grandmother in the same Dheisheh refugee camp to help take care of her.
“I swear I love you,” Arkan told his father, showing him what he had bought for Ghassan, his younger brother.
“I bought him three types of ice cream and chips, so you don’t say that I don’t like my younger brother,” Arkan told Thaer.
“Then he repeated how much he loves me over and over again. I asked him what’s wrong, but he kept saying ‘nothing, but I just swear
I love you’,” Thaer recounted to Al Jazeera.
The following morning Thaer received a call informing him at first that Arkan had been shot in the leg, “to avoid horrifying” him. But as he rushed back to the camp, his gut feeling that his son had in fact been killed only grew stronger.
Israeli forces had shot Arkan in the chest during confrontations before dawn that day as the soldiers raided the camp to arrest youth. The camp is located just south of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank.
His family describes Arkan as an active, social and hardworking student who dreamed of studying mechanics in Germany to become an electrician or car mechanic. He had just finished the ninth grade and was enrolled to attend a nearby industrial high school in September.
At the young age of 11, he had already learned how to make sofas and chairs. Noticing his son’s natural talent, Thaer set up a workshop for him a few years ago.
“He was always smiling and his face always happy and welcoming,” Thaer said of his son.
Growing up the second-eldest of seven kids in a poor family, Arkan was always a big help, his uncle Abdel Hameed Mizhar told Al Jazeera. During the holy month of Ramadan, he sold fruits and vegetables from a cart to help provide for the family.
“I wish that Arkan, my nephew, could be the last martyr from the Palestinian nation that seeks freedom and peace,” Abdel Hameed Mizhar said.
Residents of Dheisheh say Israeli forces began raiding the camp as they regularly do, just before the dawn prayer around 3:30am to arrest youth and began “heavily” firing tear gas, stun grenades and live ammunition.
According to researchers from Defence for Children International – Palestine (DCIP), Arkan was shot with a single live bullet near his heart, which exited through his back. He was in the main alleyway entrance next to the camp’s main road where the confrontations were taking place when he was shot.
His autopsy revealed that he was most likely shot from a short distance of approximately 10 to 15 metres, said Ayed Abu Eqtaish, accountability program director at DCIP.
