This is the face of 10-year-old Saddam Rajab. The IDF just murdered him.

Israel’s IDF shot 10-year-old Palestinian boy Saddam Rajab in the West Bank while he was on the phone to his mum. After the IDF obstructed his journey to the hospital, his injuries eventually killed him:

10 year old Saddam Rajab was on the phone to his mum while he walked down the street in the occupied West Bank when the IDF shot him. Israeli soldiers then obstructed the ambulance trying to take the boy to hospital. He subsequently died.

Diana Magnay reporting. pic.twitter.com/1RVnHhUMIB

— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) February 24, 2025

On the CCTV footage aired on Sky News, you can hear Saddam screaming in pain and struggling to move after an Israeli soldier shot him in the back. A whole two minutes later, you can see his father – who is on crutches – reaching him:

Shocking! What kind of army shoots children in the back then deliberately slows their journey to hospital.

Israel that’s who

Fucking Monsters. https://t.co/lAoZDigEzb

— H A S S A N (@Neo_Manifesto) February 24, 2025

His father said they called an ambulance. He tried to join his son but before he knew it, 20-30 IDF soldiers showed up and detained him for nearly an hour.

The IDF stopped and searched two separate ambulances carrying Saddam to hospitals. This meant he lost critical time when he should have been in the hospital. He didn’t regain consciousness and died two weeks later.

As usual, the IDF say they are ‘investigating’ Saddam’s case. We all know what that means:

Another day and another shooting of a Palestinian child without any accountability. https://t.co/MVJb1snoSD

— Dr Rehana Parveen (@rehanaparv) February 24, 2025

Saddam Rajab: just another number

The IDF have murdered more Palestinian children than we can even count. Over the weekend we saw the outcry from Hamas returning the Bibas family’s bodies to Israel. Obviously, and let us make this clear – no child dying or being killed in any circumstances is OK, ever.

However, when we compare the outcry from the deaths of two Israeli children to the tens of thousands of Palestinian children that Israel have brutally murdered over the last 16 months – there is no comparison. Much of the western media have systematically ignored and denied the devastation. In some cases, they’ve even attempted to minimise it.

Now, because two white children were killed – the whole of the West is up in arms:

Examples like this happen over and over and over and western media covers it up. If they reported Israeli abuse every time, even on neutral terms it would quickly become apparent how disgusting and vindictive the IDF is. So they don’t report that https://t.co/46Ty7350zB

— le Monstrous Carbunc (@lowerformofwit) February 24, 2025

I don’t begrudge anyone mourning any child’s death but the way these particular deaths are being mourned is very obviously a prelude to a resumption of the Gaza genocide. The Palestinians of Gaza, all of them, are being blood-libeled, and a lot of normies are participating.

— David Klion (@DavidKlion) February 22, 2025

What ceasefire?

The murder of Saddam Rajab comes in the middle of a supposed ceasefire:

Israel’s brand of ceasefire is to casually shoot a child as he talks to his mother on the phone and block the ambulance trying to save his life. Israel doesn’t care a jot that he died. Does @Keir_Starmer understand this callous behaviour is not a one-off, it’s the IDF’s pattern? https://t.co/fXzsz8Z28u

— Jocelyn Hurndall (@jocelynhurndall) February 24, 2025

Since the Gaza ceasefire came into force, the IDF have intensified their attacks in the West Bank. Only two days into the ceasefire agreement, Israel launched Operation Iron Wall. This is a military offensive which is so far targeting the northern West Bank. So far, 40,000 people have been displaced from their homes:

Israel launched Operation Iron Wall days after the Gaza ceasefire was agreed and according to the UN, 40,000 people have already been displaced.@DiMagnaySky reports from Tulkarm in the West Bank.https://t.co/WBpvbKUvRX pic.twitter.com/Smg3vESW19

— Sky News (@SkyNews) February 24, 2025

Sky News footage shows a bulldozer destroying homes in the Tulkarm refugee camp, West Bank. The IDF have also carried out door-to-door raids and air strikes:

This child is as important as every other child in the world. https://t.co/YGiMXR4Saz

— Fliss Hawksworth 🐝🐝🐝 (@FHawksworth) February 24, 2025

Of course, this is not the first ceasefire violation from Israel. Officials in Gaza have reported over 350 violations so far. This includes airstrikes by both fighter jets and drones, direct shootings and drone strikes. Additionally, there have been several Israeli incursions into border areas east of the Gaza Strip.

Israel and its mouthpiece Western media have dehumanised Palestinians to such a disgusting degree that the brutal cold-blooded murder of a Palestinian child in the West Bank barely even registers – if at all – in the press and political establishment.

Israel has killed more than 17,000 children in Gaza, but there’s been no real outrage or outpourings of grief from politicians and media in the West. All while Israel try to propagandise the treatment of the Bibas children as an catalyst for more murderous annexation and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank.

Saddam Rajab’s death is an unconscionable act of murder. But to the Western genocide and settler colonial apologists, his life doesn’t matter, because he was brown and Palestinian. After the wave of anger over the Bibas family this past week, it doesn’t get much clearer than that.

Feature image via the Canary