This page is subject to the extended confirmed restriction related to the Arab-Israeli conflict.This page is subject to the extended confirmed restriction related to the Arab-Israeli conflict.The Beitunia killings refers to the consecutive killings of two Palestinian teenagers which took place on the occasion of the annual Nakba Day protests on May 15, 2014, near the Israeli Ofer Prison outside Beitunia in the occupied West Bank.

[1][2] Six months later, 21-year-old Ben Deri, an Israel Border Police officer, was arrested and charged with shooting one of the two killed Palestinians, 17-year-old Nadim Nawarah (or Nadeem Nuwarah)[3][4] after forensic evidence showed one of the lethal bullets came from his gun.

[8] In the past, such days of remembrance have at times turned violent: in 2011 Israeli troops responded to an attempt by thousands of protesters to breach Israel's northern frontiers by opening fire that killed 10 people and injuring hundreds.

[12][13] On the occasion of the 2014 commemorations, clashes, described as relatively low-level,[9] broke out between Israeli forces and demonstrating Palestinians in Ni'lin, Bethlehem, the Al-Isawiya neighborhood in East Jerusalem.

[21][22] They were Nadim Nuwara (17);[12] Mohammad Mahmoud Odeh Salameh (Abu Thaher; 17); Muhammad al-'Azza (15), and a fourth man (aged 23), who remains unidentified.

[4][21][25] Human Rights Watch, which examined a high-speed photo sequence taken by a photojournalist Samer Nazzal just after the killing, stated that one projectile, seemingly a rubber bullet, appeared to come from the direction of the position of the Israeli forces and struck a Palestinian paramedic, wearing a bright orange vest, who helped carry Nuwwarah off.

[23] Video footage as well as first-hand accounts, including those of journalists reporting on the protest, indicated that the teenagers who had been killed were unarmed and posed no apparent nor imminent threat[23][18][24][26] and that the shots occurred during a period of calm.

Israeli troops were located in two distinct areas: 8 soldiers were positioned roughly 50 yards away behind a 1-metre high wall that overlooked the street, and a number of protesters threw stones, ineffectively, their way.

[27] According to Muhannad Jihad Rabi' (23), he and his friends, including some foreign activists, joined the demonstration at around 12:15 PM and witnessed clashes in which several protests were injured.

According to the Ramallah journalist Samer Hisham Nazzal (28), who works for Raya News and who arrived on the scene at 1:30, one could hear both rubber bullets and live fire at the time.

[23] At 1:40 pm, when stones were no longer being thrown, he heard live fire, and at one point, saw a youth (Nuwara), dressed in black, his face covered by a keffiyeh, holding a schoolbag, fall to the ground.

[22][23] The Israeli military (IDF) regulations on the use of open-fire in effect at the time in the West Bank, permit opening fire only to prevent a mortal danger to the soldiers or civilians.

The minister instead said 'Israeli troops who allegedly shot dead two Palestinian teenagers during Nakba Day protests in the West Bank last Thursday acted “as appropriate” given that “they were in a situation where their lives were in danger.”' [30] Refuting this latest Israeli version that the border police had following IDF regulations, 21 gigabytes of video, both from four CCTV cameras and footage taken by a CNN crew, showed that the two teenagers had been unarmed and were posing no threat at the time of their deaths.

[28] Oscar Fernandez-Taranco, the UN's assistant secretary-general for political affairs, stated that the indications were that the two Palestinians killed were both unarmed and appeared to pose no direct threat.

There he was ordered to dismantle his security camera surveillance system, chided for having passed the footage to human rights organizations, accused of fabricated evidence, threatened with legal actions and menaced by one soldier who allegedly said he would "unleash dogs on [my] children".

[7] Acting on behalf of the parents of the two deceased youths, Defence for Children International Palestine requested Forensic Architecture, a research agency based at the University of London, to recreate the events on 15 May.

The analyses involved determining the synchronisation of border policemen firing and Nawara being hit, as provided by two video sequences, resulting in the shooter being positively identified.

Still, further confirmation came from the unique sound signature of live ammunition being fired through an M-16 extension meant for rubber bullets, which connected the killing of Nawara and that of Abu Daher.

[36] This was negated by Forensic Architecture (University of London) which concluded that live ammunition was fired through "an M-16 extension meant for rubber bullets" based on the nature of the cartridge ejection and the sound signature of the fatal shots.

The Israeli army will present its findings on the initial investigation into the deaths of two Palestinians during a May 15 Nakba Day protest to the Chief of General Staff and Defense Minister on Thursday.

[36]On 11 November 2014, the Judea and Samaria District Police arrested an Israeli border policeman after forensic evidence matched his gun to a bullet found in the backpack of one of the deceased.

The presiding judge, Daniel Teperberg, noted that Deri's actions represented “serious and severe harm” to the Israeli social values of “sanctity of life and the human right to wellbeing.” [6] The court noted that: ... the victim, 17-year-old Nadeem Siam Nawara, had previously thrown rocks during a protest, (but that) he was a considerable distance from the demonstration and posed no threat to Deri’s Border Police unit at the time of the shooting.

[62][63] Rachel Shabi of Al Jazeera echoed the validity of earlier events as a trigger option: "Why not wind back, for instance, to the two Palestinian teenagers ... killed by Israeli snipers on Naqba day in May?

[67] They favourably quote Mouin Rabbani, a director of the Palestine American Research Center, who wrote, "The current round of escalation is generally dated from the moment three Israeli youths went missing on 12 June.

Two Palestinian boys were shot dead in Ramallah on 15 May, but that – like any number of incidents in the intervening month when Israel exercised its right to colonise and dispossess – is considered insignificant (by Western media)", an approach that he describes as 'tribal'.

[68] In June 2015 Congresswoman Betty McCollum called on U.S. State Department officials to investigate whether the killing of the two Palestinian teenagers by Israeli soldiers required the withholding of U.S. military aid.