“Why are we so different from other children in the world? Why are we detained when we’re young and made to suffer, while others are happy playing sports, and with many opportunities that we don’t have?”Those are the questions that Obaida Akram Abdurahman Jawabra, then 15, asks in the video above.

“To this day, no one can answer me.”

At his young age, Obaida had already been imprisoned by Israel repeatedly, an ordeal from which he found it hard to recover. In the film, he’s seen working to get his life back on track and build a future.

He was first detained by occupation forces at the age of 14 and detained and imprisoned again the following year.

Israeli forces briefly detained Obaida a third time in April 2019.

Like most of the hundreds of Palestinian children detained by Israel each year, he was accused of stone throwing.

In the video, Obaida’s friend asks him if he fears going back to prison again.

“The problem is Route 60 and how to cross it to go to the camp. It’s controlled by the [Israeli military],” Obaida replies.

“I like to cook,” Obaida says. In the video, he prepares a mouthwatering maqlouba – a traditional Palestinian dish of rice and lamb – for his friends and family.

“I feel freedom but it is not complete freedom,” Obaida says about life after Israeli prison. “We first have to be liberated [from the occupation] before I can feel that I am truly free.”

Obaida, who grew up in the Arroub refugee camp near the occupied West Bank city of Hebron, will never see that freedom.

On Monday evening, Obaida was shot in the chest by an Israeli occupation soldier during a demonstration near the entrance of Arroub refugee camp.

He was demonstrating on the road he dreaded: Route 60.

The soldier who fired the shot was about 70 meters away from the youth, witnesses told Defense for Children International Palestine (DCIP).Israeli forces then blocked the entrance to the refugee camp, preventing an ambulance from reaching Obaida. The boy was taken in a private car to a medical center in the town of Beit Fajjar, where he was pronounced dead.

Obaida Jawabra, who was 17, was due to graduate from a vocational cooking course next month. Instead of celebrating that achievement, his family had to bury their son.

“It is becoming shockingly clear to the international community that Israeli forces kill children with impunity,” said Ayed Abu Eqtaish, the accountability program director at DCIP.“Systemic impunity ensures there are no safe spaces for Palestinian children living under Israeli occupation.”

Matthew Cassel, the filmmaker who made the video about Obaida for DCIP, paid tribute to the teenager in an Instagram post.Obaida “spent our few days together asking me more questions than I asked him,” Cassel recalled.

“He wanted to become a chef, but surrounded in literally every direction by Israeli military, checkpoints and settlements, even chasing such a simple dream was always going to be a struggle,” he wrote.

“My heart goes out to his family, especially to his dear father Akram, who would send me the sweetest messages on holidays long after our meeting,” Cassel added.

“He loved his son and wanted nothing more than to watch him grow up away from the occupation.”

Lethal Israeli crackdown

Obaida Jawabra is sadly only one of many Palestinians – including at least three children – killed by Israeli occupation forces in the West Bank in recent days.

As Israel’s savage bombardment of Gaza has taken the lives of more than 200 Palestinians young and old since it began on 10 May, occupation forces have also been violently repressing Palestinian protests across the West Bank.

At least 22 Palestinians had been killed in the West Bank through 17 May, according to the UN humanitarian coordination agency OCHA.

Almost 5,000 have been injured.

OCHA noted its concern about the “use of excessive force by Israeli forces as well as attacks by Israeli settlers in general and the use of live ammunition against Palestinians in particular.”

Occupation forces have also continued to attack Palestinians in Jerusalem, particularly in the neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah where Palestinians are resisting Israel’s plans to forcibly expel a number of Palestinian families to give their houses to Israeli Jewish settlers.

NOW #SheikhJarrah throwing stun grenades on all sides, all streets including main road &skunk water. Terrible smell and some people injured. They re literally terrorizing people. I dont post video not to expose people s face.

— Inès Abdel Razek (@InesAbdelrazek) May 18, 2021

I saw a lot more instances of entirely unnecessary, provocative behavior by Israeli police/military today. At Damascus Gate (stun grenades thrown at peaceful Palestinian group), in Sheikh Jarrah (skunk water fired on Palestinian homes) & Bethlehem (volleys of tear gas) pic.twitter.com/7AhW5mKcjM

— Mark Stone (@Stone_SkyNews) May 18, 2021

Israeli soldiers (armed by the US, UK and EU) assault Palestinian journalist Latifeh Abdellatif and forcibly removed her hijab. This is the so-called ‘only democracy in the Middle East’? Or is this more accurately reminiscent of an apartheid state? #gaza #WestBank #Palestine🇵🇸 pic.twitter.com/tpfoH8uTvV

— Going Underground on RT (@Underground_RT) May 18, 2021