UK Citizen Serving in Israeli Forces Identified as Killer of 17-Year-Old Palestinian Boy

A British woman serving in the Israeli occupation forces killed the Palestinian boy Attallah Mohammad Harb Rayyan. The 17-year-old teenager from Qawarat Bani Hassan, a town located near the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, was shot on Tuesday 26 January. Attallah Rayan’s killing is reminiscent of the 2012 slaying of 17-year-old Palestinian Muhammad al-Salaymeh at a checkpoint near his home in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron. Nofar Mizrahi, the female soldier who fired the fatal shots, claimed that al-Salaymeh was holding a pistol to the neck of another soldier when she shot him. Video that emerged afterward revealed her account to be a lie.
Full report in Palestine Chronicle 28 Jan 2021

One of Attallah’s killers was identified as a British female Cpl Lian Harush. The 22-year-old traveled by herself from the UK to serve as a “lone soldier” in Israel’s occupation army. As many as 6,000 such soldiers with dual citizenship belong to the controversial program.

Harush's commander in Israel's occupation forces says that after shooting 17 y/o Atallah Rayan "we kept hitting him with our weapons”. While Rayan lay dying without first aid. Attallah Rayan had taken a school computer science exam earlier the day he was shot and beaten to death. Local news sources published pictures and video of the aftermath of Rayan’s shooting. They show a person lying by a fence with heavily armed soldiers surrounding him. There is no apparent effort to provide first aid. Soldiers drove away one Palestinian who tried to approach the dying school student.

The killer called her parents in London who said she "should not be afraid."

The "Lone Soldier" recruitment has also been a cause of controversy. An Al Jazeera report found that far-right radical organizations in Europe were recruiting western citizens to serve in the Israeli army. Many of these foreign fighters took part in the 2014 Gaza war

Organizations linked to the Israeli army are said to be cropping up all over Europe to enlist voluntary recruits. The organizations specializing in bringing individuals to Israel operate branches in major European cities, including London, to provide military experience and also an opportunity to take part in formal combat.

Rayan’s killing is reminiscent of the 2012 slaying of 17-year-old Palestinian Muhammad al-Salaymeh at a checkpoint near his home in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron.

Nofar Mizrahi, the female soldier who fired the fatal shots, claimed that al-Salaymeh was holding a pistol to the neck of another soldier when she shot him. Video that emerged afterward revealed her account to be a lie.

According to three British inquest juries, the Israeli army habitually lies about the circumstances of its killings.

Over the years, three separate British inquest juries found that the Israeli army had deliberately and unlawfully killed three British citizens, after intially denying the facts and lying that the victims had been holding or had been thought to be holding weapons, or had been killed by Palestinians.

In April 2003 an Israeli sniper shot Tom Hurndall in the head while he was protecting schoolschildren from the sniper. His killer initially claimed Tom had been firing a pistol.
In December 2005, a UK inquest jury unanimously found that British humanitarian aid worker Ian Hook was "unlawfully killed", murdered, in Jenin by an Israeli sniper after the Israeli military tried to claim Hook was killed by Palestinians.
In April 2006, a UK inquest jury found that cameraman and film maker James Miller had been murdered. This followed the Israeli army acquitting the sniper-killer of any charges. The Miller family alleged "that Foreign Office officials had tried to pressure them into giving in to Israeli demands", and Miller's father described the British government as "totally supine and ineffective".

Full report in Palestine Chronicle 28 Jan 2021