A 13-year-old boy was maimed on 7 June by what appeared to be Israeli unexploded grenade he had found three days before in the fields near his home in Tulkarm Camp, while collecting grass for the goats. The boy tried to drill it open and suffered severe injuries in the subsequent explosion. His left foot was amputated his right leg was broken; he lost vision in his right eye and sustained lighter injuries all over his body.
'I liked the shape of this object'
On Wednesday 4 June in the afternoon, Anas and his two brothers where collecting grass for the goats in the fields near their home in Tulkarm Camp. At some point, Anas told DCI/PS, 'I spotted an avocado-shaped object of a brown colour with protrusions coming out of it. I liked the shape of this object; it was under a fig tree. I was curious to know what that object was, so I picked it up, and it was made of reinforced plastic'. Anas decided to bring the object back to his house. He placed it in his bag and resumed collecting grass.
Later in the evening, Anas showed the object to his father, who suspected it to be an unexploded Israeli grenade, because of Hebrew inscriptions on it, and carefully placed it in a flower pot in the yard outside the house. In the following days, the father showed the device to several family friends who visited the house. 'All my friends who came to visit us liked the shape of that object and some of them asked me to give it to them but I refused and kept it where it was until Saturday morning, 7 June.'
The following Saturday, three days after he found the unexploded ordnance (UXO), Anas woke up to find his father gone to Tulkarm city market to sell vegetables and his mother busy in the kitchen. His brothers were out and he decided to examine the object he had found and try to open it. He fetched a drill, stepped on the object with his left foot and started drilling. He stopped for a moment when he saw white substance coming out of the object, and resumed drilling just before the device exploded.
Upon hearing the explosion Anas's mother, his brother and some neighbours came into the living room, which was filled with smoke. They discovered him severely injured and bleeding heavily.
Injuries and treatment
Anas was immediately carried out of the room by his brother and a neighbour and driven to Thabet Thabet governmental hospital where he received urgent treatment and three units of blood. He was then transported to Rafidya hospital in Nablus to undergo surgery for five hours. His left foot was amputated and his right leg, whose bones were damaged by the explosion, was placed in a plaster cast. In addition, the explosion had damaged the nerves around his right eye and he had lost his ability to see from this eye.
Anas reported to DCI/PS: 'I spent three consecutive days unconscious in the intensive care unit. On Wednesday, 11 June 2008, at around 8:00 am, I woke up and my father came and talked to me. He was so touched and cried a lot. He was trying to make me feel comfortable because of my left amputated foot.'
On 12 June, he was transferred to a specialist hospital in Nablus to have his eye examined, then he was taken back to Thabet Thabet hospital in Tulkarm. On 19 June, he was transported to al-Maqasid hospital in Jerusalem for further treatment to his eye, but to no avail: Anas has lost sight in his right eye. On 13 September, he will undergo surgery in St John Eye Hospital in Jerusalem to acquire a temporary artificial eye, to be replaced by a permanent one after three months.
Today, 24 July, DCI/PS was informed by the family that Anas was now able to stand on his right leg with the assistance of crutches. He is currently back at home from al-Maqasid hospital but will shortly be admitted into Abu Rayya rehabilitation centre in Ramallah for a month, and hopefully be fitted with an artificial leg. His father will stay with him in Ramallah during the entire physiotherapy.
Israeli UXO
According to information provided to DCI/PS by Anas's father as well as Tulkarm Police Director of Criminal Investigations, the unexploded device found by Anas was an unexploded Israeli grenade.
Indeed, the Israeli army is known to have carried out a major military operation n the area in 2005; the operation was targeting the leader of the al-Quds Brigades in the West Bank. Anas's house was hit and partly demolished by artillery shells, grenades, and live bullets fired by the Israeli military during the attack. It is very likely that the grenade that maimed Anas was left behind after this operation.
39 children killed by UXO since 2000
According to DCI/PS documentation, as of 12 July 2008 and since September 2000, 39 children have been killed by unexploded Israeli ordnance. An appalling figure considering that under the Charter of the United Nations and international humanitarian law, Israel has a duty to facilitate the marking and clearance, and removal or destruction of any explosive remnants of its operations.
DCI/PS demands that Israel comply with its international legal obligations to ensure that no more Palestinian children are killed or maimed by unexploded ordnance.