Naji was shot to death on November 3. The teenager’s dream was to go to a soccer camp in Jordan.Credit: Reproduction by Alex Levac

This past Monday, November 11, marked the 20^th anniversary of the death of Yasser Arafat, whom many people around the world seem to have forgotten. A memorial assembly was held for him in an auditorium in the town of Halhul in the West Bank. In the early afternoon, when we arrived, it was hard to find a parking place in the vicinity; the elders of Fatah had showed up in their masses. The guest of honor was the most recently bereaved father in town, Nidal Zimara, a truck driver who had lost one of his two sons, 14-year-old Naji, eight days before. Until November 3, it had been two years since Israeli forces had killed someone in this relatively quiet town, just north of Hebron.

We went to visit Zimara and his extended family at home in a fairly new, three-story apartment building, faced in stone, in a tranquil Halhul neighborhood. Out in the street there were posters commemorating the child who had been shot by Israeli soldiers, but there were none in the apartment. The walls were also bare in the room Naji shared with both his father and his brother, Mohammed – a bed for each. There isn’t so much as a photograph of Cristiano Ronaldo, the star soccer player Naji idolized. Nothing here indicates a teenager’s presence. Just three beds, stark walls and a closet.

Naji was a defender on the youth team of the local soccer club; Mohammed, 16, is a striker on the same team. A year and a half ago, Mohammed went with his teammates to a training camp in Jordan; this year was to be Naji’s turn to enjoy the experience. A dream, never to be fulfilled.

In the most recent picture taken of him, from a few weeks ago, Naji is seen standing on the soccer field wearing his team’s purple uniform, emblazoned with logos of sponsors, arms crossed on his chest, gaze fixed on the horizon. A parting shot.

Recently, this column told the story of Abdallah Hawash, an 11-year-old boy from Nablus who, on October 22, threw a few stones in the direction of an Israel Defense Forces convoy that passed by on the main street. The stones didn’t hit the armored vehicles and thus caused no damage, but a soldier inside one of them fired a shot at the boy while driving by. An execution in cold blood. Following that incident, the IDF responded more severely than usual, relative to its distorted moral and legal criteria, by suspending the executioner-soldier from all operational activity – one of the severest punishments ever inflicted by the army on a child killer.

And yet less than two weeks later, soldiers again executed a child without a trial – a boy they could easily have taken into custody or at most lightly wounded, without killing him. But two bullets struck Naji, who was apparently throwing stones that could not have hurt anyone, wreaking devastation in his upper body. Naji died instantly.

Nidal Zimara, Naji’s father.Credit: Alex Levac

The grieving father’s arm is broken and bandaged – the result of what soldiers did to him after killing his son. Nidal delivers pieces of marble throughout the West Bank, mainly taking batches from the Hebron area to the north. He’s 47, divorced, and the father of four daughters and two sons, including the deceased; their mother now lives with her parents. Nidal’s father, Naji, 70, after whom the younger grandson was named, joins our conversation.

November 3 started like every other day. Young Naji went to school in the morning; Grandpa Naji went to work in the grocery store he runs next door; and Nidal made some deliveries, this time close to home, near Hebron. Father and son returned home around midday. After lunch, Naji went out with friends to play soccer – the sport that was the love of his life.

At some point later, a few children entered the grandfather’s grocery store and told the elder Naji that they’d heard that a boy had been shot and wounded by soldiers. The grandfather phoned his son, awakening him from his nap. Nidal rushed off to what he thought was the site of the incident.

For his part, Mohammed relates that he was with his brother playing soccer, but that Naji told him he was going somewhere else to play. He and another boy his age – whose identity his parents refuse to divulge, for fear he will come to harm – climbed a hill not far from his home, where there’s a group of trees that overlooks Highway 60, the West Bank’s main thoroughfare.

According to a report by Basel al-Adrah, a field researcher for the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, it is hard to determine exactly what happened because there was no one but the two boys at the site, some 100 meters from the highway. They were throwing stones in the direction of the road, but from that distance could not have hit any passing cars or pedestrians. Naji’s father and brother told us he had been killed while playing soccer; they are probably afraid to admit that he and his friend were throwing stones – as if that would ever justify a boy’s execution. Soldiers, lurking in ambush in the same woods for stone throwers who might endanger them or others, fired several shots at the two boys.

The Zimara family home in Halhul.Credit: Alex Levac

As Nidal drove toward the highway, passersby told him that the wounded boy was his son and that soldiers had evacuated him; the other boy had been lightly wounded by a bullet or shrapnel that struck his palm, and fled the scene. But as Nidal approached he saw a large number of military vehicles parked along the roadside. Above, on the hill, he saw soldiers surrounding a body covered with a glittering Mylar wrap. Naji was dead.

Nidal shouted “Please let me see my son!” at the soldiers, in Hebrew– but they barred his way. He saw that they had put the body on a stretcher and were making their way down; Naji’s sports shoes were sticking out. He says he may have tried to force his way through but in any case, the soldiers barked at him to kneel on the ground. They then proceeded to beat him with their hands and strike him with their rifle butts. As a result, his right arm was broken.

The IDF Spokesperson’s Unit this week stated, in response to a query from Haaretz’s: “During army activity near Halhul in [the territory of] the Etzion Brigade, IDF fighters spotted two terrorists throwing stones at civilian vehicles and endangering them. In order to protect the major traffic artery, the fighters opened fire to remove the danger. The circumstances of the case are still undergoing clarification. The allegations of violent behavior by the soldiers toward the father have been investigated and shown to be incorrect.”

Naji’s body was placed in a military ambulance; none of the three Palestinian ambulances that were summoned to the site were permitted to evacuate him. The soldiers told Nidal to go home. A short time later, the Coordination and Liaison Administration informed the family that they could come claim the body from the army ambulance, outside the Etzion base. Naji’s body was then taken by a Palestinian ambulance to Mahmoud Abbas Hospital in Halhul, where it was kept overnight. The following day the family collected it, recited a prayer over Naji’s soul at the local mosque and buried him in the local cemetery.

Gideon Levy and Alex Levac