Abdel Rahim Hamad, standing before a photo of his late son, Abdel Rahman. He instructed his family: “Do not place me in a freezer, bury me immediately. Lay me on my bed, cover me with blankets and take me to burial.”Credit: Alex Levac

Abdel Rahman Hamad wrote a last will and testament. A long text with detailed instructions, in his scrupulous handwriting. More and more Palestinian teenagers in the occupied West Bank are writing wills these days, and with even greater intensity in the wake of the events in the Gaza Strip. Hamad requested to be buried as quickly as possible, and asked his family to use a good shot of him as his profile photo in the social networks and to add a prayer verse next to it, and above all, not to mourn his death.

“Do not place me in a freezer,” he wrote, “bury me immediately. Lay me on my bed, cover me with blankets and take me to burial. When you lower me into the grave, remain behind me. But don’t be sad. Remember only the beautiful memories of me and don’t mourn for me. I don’t want anyone to be sad.” Hamad wrote the will last July 18 and gave it to a friend for safekeeping. A photo of the text is stored in the bereaved father’s cell phone.

Iyad Hadad, a field researcher for the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, translates and reads it for us. Suddenly he chokes up, before bursting into heartrending tears that don’t stop. We’ve never seen Hadad cry. He’s been dealing with human rights in the territories since 1986, first for the Palestinian organization Al Haq, and for the past 24 years for B’Tselem. He’s seen everything, investigates every case of killing and other crimes of the occupation throughout the Ramallah area, and now he’s weeping profusely. The last will and testament of someone who was not yet 18 has made him break down. The face of the dead boy’s father, Abdel Rahim, is grief-stricken, but his eyes remain dry. An oppressive silence falls upon the room.

On January 29, we traveled to the village of Al-Mazra’a a-Sharqiya to investigate the circumstances of the killing of Tawfic Abdeljabbar, an American teenager, who was shot to death by Israeli soldiers or settlers – or both. On the way there we passed through the town of Silwad. When we got to Al-Mazra’a a-Sharqiya, we were notified that another teenager had been killed, this one in Silwad, shortly after we left it. This week we went back to Silwad.

The spot where Abdel Rahman was killed.Credit: Alex Levac

Perched on a hill, it’s a well-to-do, relatively developed town of about 6,000 residents, northeast of Ramallah. There is intense construction going on here, such as we haven’t seen in other towns and villages. It’s also a militant place, which the Israel Defense Forces frequently raid, provoking the residents, whose town is close to Highway 60, the West Bank’s main artery, on which settlers travel and stones are thrown. In the past five years, Silwad has lost seven of its sons; Hamas leader Khaled Meshal was born here in 1956 and grew up in the town.

This past Sunday would have been Abdel Rahman Hamad’s 18^th birthday. He didn’t celebrate it – he’d already been dead for two weeks. This week, on a street where splendid marble mansions are being built, next to the Al Huriya residential tower, a truck unloaded construction materials into the yard of one of those mansions. Across the road, two Palestinian pennants stick up from the ground, and there are two circles made from broken pieces of marble, on one of which the name of Abdel Rahman Hamad has been inscribed in pencil. Garbage flutters around the improvised memorial. This is where the teenager was killed.

It was a Monday, and Abdel Rahman was on his way home from school. On social media it was announced that the Israeli army, which had invaded the town a little after 8 A.M., had begun to pull out. But on the street Abdel Rahman was walking along, apparently by himself, there were still two Israeli armored vehicles: a police jeep and an army car. The street is parallel to the avenue with the homes under construction, on the slope of the hill, and afterward it emerged that between the skeletons of the mansions, all of them belonging to the extended Qassam family, a few more youths were hiding. They were tracking the departing security forces and waiting for an opportunity to throw stones at them.

Suddenly the door of one of the parked vehicles opened. A soldier or a Border Policeman stuck his body out and fired a single shot, as precise as it was lethal, straight into Abdel Rahman’s stomach. The distance between the sniper and his victim was about 150 meters, and the youth higher up the street than the shooter. Immediately afterward, the door of the armored vehicle was shut and both vehicles sped away. They shot, they killed, they fled.

A roadblock on the way leading up to Silwad.Credit: MARCO LONGARI - AFP

They aborted the life of a youth and destroyed the life of a family, though it’s unlikely that this was something they considered for even a second. Even if Abdel Rahman threw a stone or (as the police claim) a Molotov cocktail, there is no way he could have endangered the lives of the soldiers and Border Police in the least. At that distance he didn’t have a chance of hitting the armored vehicles. Nonetheless, why not terminate the life of a youth if you can? After all, no one will take an interest in it afterward, apart from the shattered family.

As all this was happening, an eyewitness, whose identity is in the possession of Hadad, the field researcher, was seated on the balcony of his home, opposite the two security vehicles, observing the events. He had just exchanged messages with his wife, who resides in Jordan. She asked him how he was doing, and he had informed her that an invasion by the Israeli army was underway and that the soldiers had blanketed the center of the town with tear gas. The view in Silwad is that the encroachment by the IDF and the Border Police that day was no more than a demonstration of strength orchestrated by the new area commander of the Shin Bet security service, codenamed “Omri.”

In any event, the man’s wife asked him to film the events for her, and he did so. The footage he took through the top of an olive tree in the yard shows an amazingly quiet and tranquil street, with no stones and no Molotov cocktails flying through the air. Suddenly, the silence is broken by the sound of a shot from the direction of one of the armored vehicles. Immediately afterward, paramedics, who came from an ambulance that was parked nearby, are seen running toward the victim, as the two Israeli vehicles pull out fast in the opposite direction. The heroes had done their day’s work – time to go.

The driver of the Palestinian ambulance, which had been waiting at the end of the street, the usual practice when the security forces invade, saw Abdel Rahman fall to the ground. He and his team rushed him to the urgent-care service in the local clinic. The youth was in critical condition. The bullet entered his hip and exited from the chest – he was apparently bending over when he was hit. Attempts to revive him were unavailing.

Abdel Rahman’s father, Abdel Rahim Hamad.Credit: Alex Levac

The IDF Spokesperson’s Unit referred Haaretz to the Border Police. A spokesman for the Israel Police (under which the Border Police serve) this week stated in response to Haaretz’s request for comment: “During activity by the security forces, the suspect threw a Molotov cocktail at the fighters and endangered their lives. In response a fighter shot at him and neutralized the danger.”

Abdel Rahman was the firstborn son of Abdel Rahim, 44, and his wife, Inam Ayad, 42. He was student in the 12^th grade, in the science track. His ambition was to study medicine, so he worked hard ahead of the matriculation exams not only to gain admission to medical school, but also with the hope of obtaining a scholarship. Photographs show him speaking at school assemblies and holiday celebrations. Tall and good-looking, he stood out among his peers. He played on the Silwad soccer team, but in recent months devoted all his time to his studies, as he also did on the last night of his life.

On the morning of January 29, as his father was about to leave for work (in construction) in the nearby village of Ein Sinya, he noticed that his son was still asleep. He decided not to wake him, as he knew that Abdel Rahman had studied late into the night. His father left the house at 6:30 A.M., and the youth’s mother woke him up about an hour later and drove him to school in her car. At 11:30 she called her husband to say that the army had invaded Silwad. She asked him to call their younger son, 15-year-old Sliman, who works in construction in the town, to check that he was alright. They didn’t worry about Abdel Rahman, knowing he was in school. Sliman was fine, the security forces hadn’t been to the place where he worked.

At 12, Abdel Rahim called his wife. “What’s happening?” he asked, and was told that the center of the town was covered by a cloud of tear gas that was penetrating homes. As long as the kids are fine, the father thought. At 12:30, as he was having a late breakfast with the workers, he received an anonymous phone call, which disconnected without anyone saying anything. A few minutes later, his brother called and told him to get back home quickly. Why? “Ubeida was wounded” – using Abdel Rahman’s nickname. The father says he went into shock.

Abdel Rahman’s young relatives watch his funeral.Credit: JAAFAR ASHTIYEH - AFP

“I didn’t know what to do,” he recalls. “I was totally confused. My hand went to Ubeida’s phone number and I called him.” A Palestinian ambulance driver answered. He asked how his son was, and the driver replied, “He’s all right. I’ll update you soon.”

Distraught, Abdel Rahim waited a minute or two and called again. This time the driver said, “We’re hoping he will be all right.” Abdel Rahman was already dead, but his father didn’t know that yet, and was certain that his son would now be rushed from the Silwad clinic to the Governmental Hospital in Ramallah. He asked the driver to pick him up on the way – his place of work is on the main road to Ramallah. A moment later his brother called and said again: “Come back to town, and fast.”

By now he understood that his son was dead. Still in a daze, he went to the first clinic, where he was told that his son was at the hospital. When he arrived there, he stepped out of the car and fainted, collapsing on the ground. He remembers nothing of the minutes that followed.

Photos of the dead youth hang on the wall of the elegant living room. One of the images is made up of portraits of the three members of the family who have been killed by Israeli troops over the years: Abdel Rahman in the center, flanked by his two dead uncles. His uncle Jihad Iyad, his mother’s brother, was killed by Israeli soldiers in 1998, when he was 17; the other uncle, his father’s brother, Mohammed Hamad, was killed by soldiers in 2004, at the age of 21. Abdel Rahman didn’t know either of them. His father adds in a whisper that his own uncle as well was killed, in 1989, and once more an oppressive silence descends upon the room.

Gideon Levy, Alex Levac