On February 7, 10-year-old Saddam Rajab died in a hospital in the occupied West Bank after being shot by an Israeli soldier days earlier. Saddam was standing in the street in front of his home when Israeli soldiers invaded his village near Tulkarem and started firing.

CCTV footage shows the moment he was shot. He fell to the ground, clutching his abdomen and curling up into a foetal position. The first hospital he was rushed to was unable to treat him and so he had to be transferred to another in Nablus. On the way, the ambulance was held up for hours at a checkpoint where an Israeli soldier taunted Saddam’s father, saying: “I am the one who shot your son. God willing, he will die.”

Saddam is one of 13 Palestinian children that the Israeli army has killed in the occupied West Bank since the start of the year. The death toll of children murdered by Israeli soldiers and settlers in the occupied West Bank has shockingly exceeded 220 since January 2023.

Saddam’s story – like the stories of other Palestinian child victims – never made international headlines. There was no reaction from the international community to his murder. That is because Palestinian children experience relentless dehumanisation.

This is apparent even in the few stories that get in the media spotlight, like the case of six-year-old Hind Rajab, who was killed by the........

© Al Jazeera