Palestinian boy buried as US calls for inquiry

TUQU’, Palestinian Territories: A seven-year-old Palestinian boy who died on the sidelines of an Israeli army search in the occupied West Bank was buried on Friday, with Washington calling for a “thorough” investigation into his death.

According to an account from the boy’s cousin, Mohammed Suleiman, Rayan had “run and fallen” on Thursday after returning from school to find soldiers inside and outside his home.

He was taken to nearby Beit Jala hospital where he was declared dead. The Palestinian foreign ministry said Suleiman died after falling from a building “while being chased by Israeli occupation forces”.

The Israeli army said its soldiers had searched the area after “a number of Palestinians hurled rocks toward civilians”. But an “initial inquiry shows no connection between the searches conducted by the IDF (army) in the area and the tragic death of the child”, it said. The US State Department said on Thursday it supported “a thorough and immediate investigation into the circumstances” of the death.