The Palestinian Political Situation

Young Volunteer Shot Dead by Israeli Army While Campaigning for Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi

Palestine Monitor
January 1, 2005

On the morning of Thursday, 30 December 2004, Riziq Ziad Musleh, a 17-year-old Palestinian high school student, left his home in the Tel al-Sultan Refugee Camp near the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah. He was placing posters on a wall near his home for Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi’s presidential campaign when, without any warning or incident, he was shot in his right side from the direction of the Rafah Yam* Israeli settlement. An observation tower manned by Israeli soldiers is located in the settlement, about 500 yards from where Riziq was standing.

The bullet lodged in Riziq’s heart. He was taken to the Abu Yusef al-Najjar hospital in Rafah, where he was pronounced dead at 11:00 p.m. that night.

A formal complaint about this tragic event and other serious harassment faced by Palestinian presidential campaigners, volunteers, and candidates has been lodged with the EU Election Observation Mission.

We call for immediate intervention by the international community to stop all assaults on presidential candidates, volunteers, and campaigners by Israeli forces. We call once again on the international community to make sure that the Israeli government lives up to its promise of allowing free and fair elections in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, in the best interests of peace, justice, and democracy for all peoples in the region.

We also call for serious and sustained pressure by the international community on the Israeli government to end policies at the highest levels that foster the atmosphere of immunity that allows and encourages such egregious assaults on the most basic rights and freedoms of Palestinian people.

* The Rafah Yam settlement was established in 1984 on expropriated Tel al-Sultan land, and in 2001 it was occupied by 134 Israeli settlers. Source: Peace Now Settlement Watch, 31-12-2001.