On 25 March 2022, as part of its engagement with the UN Human Rights Council 49th session, Al-Haq on behalf of partner organizations, submitted an oral statement under agenda item 4 on human rights situations that require the Council’s attention, highlighting the ongoing and increasing suppression of Palestinian resistance in Beita village enduring settlement expansion and systematic settler colonial violence. The statement was delivered by Mr. Said Hamayel, father of Mohammad Hamayel, 16, who was killed by the Israeli occupying forces on 11 June 2021 in the context of a peaceful protest against settlement expansion.

Mr. Hamayel’s statement aimed to draw the Council’s attention to Israel’s ongoing human rights abuses and crimes since the day he was born, and to its illegal ‘shoot-to-kill’ policy, which took away his son’s life, who did not pose any imminent threat to the Israeli Occupying Forces. Mr. Hamayel urged the Council and the international community to provide real protection for the residents of Beita, who have been resisting the appropriation of their land and establishment of an illegal colonial outpost on Jabal (Mountain) Sbeih, southeast of Nablus city.

It must be noted that since the beginning of the protests in Beita against the Evyatar colonial outpost on 10 May 2021, and until 18 February 2022, the Israeli Occupying Forces killed 9 Palestinians, including two children, and injured 5,864 protesters, including 174 injuries with live bullets, and 905 with rubber-coated bullets according to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society.

The oral statement read as follows:

49th Regular Session of the UN Human Rights Council

Item 4 - General Debate

Joint Oral Intervention by

Al-Haq, Law in the Service of Man, NGO in special consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council

Date: 21 March 2022

Speaker: Said Hamayel, father of Mohammad Hamayel, 16, who was killed by the Israeli occupying forces on 11 June 2021 in the context of a peaceful protest against settlement expansion

My name is Said Hamayel, from the village of Beita in Nablus.  My family’s struggle with the Israeli occupation started when I was two years old. They killed my father, my brother and my sister. They [punitively] demolished our home in 1988. I was arrested and wounded [by the Israeli occupying authorities]. 

We have been trying, as a family, to overcome our pain, but in 11 June 2021, with the killing of our son Mohammad [16 years old], we lost all our hopes and dreams. We have been living with mere bodies without souls. Mohammad was shot by an Israeli occupying sniper, although he was not a threat to them.

In Beita, six Palestinians were killed, and 4000 others were injured by the Israeli occupying forces. Despite this, we will continue to resist, until the Israeli occupying forces and settlers leave Sbeih Mount.

I call upon the international community to protect us and our children. We don’t want mere documentation; we want them to provide us with real protection.

This statement was endorsed by the following organizations: Human Rights & Democratic Participation Center “SHAMS”, Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, The Community Action Center / Al-Quds University, Palestinian Centre for Human Rights.

See the oral statement in video below: