JENIN REFUGEE CAMP, West Bank — At the funeral for Sadeel Naghniyeh, 15, her closest friends hoisted her dead body over their small shoulders. Wearing their school uniforms — tight black hijabs and oversized striped shirts — they staggered through the Palestinian refugee camp, crying and choking out the Islamic funeral prayers.
Last week’s tribute by the schoolgirls was a striking departure from the stream of funerals that have become a grim routine in this flashpoint West Bank town. The death of Sadeel — killed by suspected Israeli fire when a raid into the northern Jenin refugee camp ignited the territory’s fiercest Israeli-Palestinian fighting in years — drew attention to the rising number of children killed in the heightened violence and the extraordinary risks they face.
Typically in Palestinian funerals, older men — relatives and friends — drape the dead in the flags of militant groups. Sadeel’s eighth-grade classmates wrapped her in the uniform she would no longer wear.
“She was only a child. She had ambitions to become a nurse and save lives,” her father, Ghassan Naghniyeh, 46, said from his vine-covered driveway where Sadeel was shot. “They killed my daughter and they killed her dreams.”
Witness accounts and surveillance videos suggest there were no clashes at that time on her street and that the fighting between Palestinian militants and Israeli forces was unfolding some 650 meters (700 yards) west of her home.
The killing of Sadeel — one of 12 Palestinians under the age of 16 killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank this year, according to a tally by The Associated Press — has sparked condemnation from rights groups and renewed scrutiny of the military’s record of causing civilian casualties. The army launched a widespread campaign into Palestinian towns last year in response to a wave of Palestinian attacks inside Israel.
So far this year, nearly 140 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank, according to…
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