[Ed. note – Well…it’s really getting hard to tell the Israelis from ISIS these days. Maybe in the near future we’re going to need something like a Pepsi challenge to try and detect the difference between them. Or maybe it’s reached the point where we’re already in need of one now.
Then again, maybe there’s no difference between Israel and ISIS at all, and perhaps they’re in reality one and the same. That’s certainly a possibility. At any rate, what we have in the photo above are the bodies of a brother and sister who were shot to death this morning by an Israeli police officer. And it looks like another divinely given teaching moment, for of course the murder of the two siblings comes just a day or so after the Obama administration announced its support for a “memorandum of understanding” calling for a hefty increase in military aid to Israel. Well, I guess if we’re going to give weapons to the head choppers of ISIS, then to be perfectly consistent we’d want to give them to the Israelis as well. That would make sense, wouldn’t it?
At any rate the article below, from Ma’an News, tells of the deaths this morning of 23-year-old Maram Ismail and her 16-year-old brother, Ibrahim. It is another tragedy, another transgression against God carried out by the Israelis. ]
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Witnesses: Palestinian siblings posed no threat when shot dead
RAMALLAH (Ma’an) — Witnesses to an alleged stab attempt on Israeli border police at a military checkpoint in the occupied West Bank Wednesday said two siblings shot dead during the incident posed no threat at the time the Israeli officer killed them.
Witnesses told Ma’an that 23-year-old Maram Salih Hassan Abu Ismail, five months pregnant, and her 16-year-old brother Ibrahim were en route to Jerusalem when they took a path intended for vehicles, not pedestrians, into Qalandiya checkpoint near Ramallah. The two were apparently unable to understand Israeli officers yelling in Hebrew, and stopped walking.
Witnesses said it appeared that Ibrahim attempted to grab his sister’s hand and move away from the officers, when they opened fire on her. Maram fell to the ground and when Ibrahim attempted to aid her, he was shot in his tracks.
A Palestinian bus driver present at the scene, Muhammad Ahmad, told Ma’an that the Israeli officer who opened fire on Maram was standing behind a cement block some 20 meters away from her at the time. The driver said it did not appear that Maram or her brother posed any threat when the officer shot them.
Maram Abu Esmael aged 24 has been executed this morning @Qalandia with another on who still unknown
tamimi
Palestinian local and witness to the incident Ahmad Taha told Ma’an that Israeli officers approached the two after they had been shot and had fallen to the ground before opening fire on them again “to ensure that they were dead,” adding that the officers “could have moved the two away without opening fire.”
Taha alleged that the officers planted knives on the scene, photographs of which were distributed by Israeli police who said they had been in Maram and Ibrahim’s possession.
Ibrahim Taha, 15, who was shot & killed by IOF in Jerusalem today while he shielded his sister who was shot 15X
Local sources said Maram was the mother of a six and four-year-old, and five months pregnant. She had reportedly obtained a permit from the Israeli authorities to enter Jerusalem for the first time when she was crossing on Wednesday.
Maram and her 16-year-old brother are among over 200 Palestinians to be killed by Israeli forces or settlers since October, the majority during small-scale attacks that have left nearly 30 Israelis dead.
Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip denounced the deaths Wednesday and called for continued resistance against the Israeli occupation.
Daoud Shihab, spokesperson of the Islamic Jihad movement, referred to their deaths as an “execution,” while Fawzi Barhum of Hamas said the move by the Israeli officer to shoot the two was “systematic terrorism” and a “hideous crime that has crossed all red lines,” adding that the “crime would not go without punishment.”
Maram and Ibrahim’s deaths come in the wake of mass criticism towards what has been termed Israel’s policy of “extrajudicial executions” towards Palestinians, which most recently came under spotlight after an Israeli soldier was caught on film shooting a prone Palestinian through the head from point blank range.
Sara and Remas the doughters of Maram Abu Esma’el who was executed this morning #Qalandia on her way to the hospital
Popular Palestinian support for stab attacks — widely explained by Palestinian and international leadership as a natural response to the effects of the ongoing Israeli military occupation — has hovered below fifty percent for the past two months, according to polls, coinciding with a relative drop in the frequency of such attacks that initially surged in October.
A reduction in stab attacks has been attributed to security coordination between the Palestinian Authority and Israel, as well as to general public sentiments that the attacks are not effective in resistance against the occupation, according to polls.
Uprooted Palestinian 
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