Oliver Munro, 23, from Lossiemouth, has been in the West Bank since October with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), which campaigns on behalf of Palestinians.
I'm staying in the West Bank village of Nil'in, near Ramallah. After the Gaza bombings on Saturday, hundreds of people took to the streets.
About 40 demonstrators were out on Sunday and seven members of ISM went with them. We started on the road into Nil'in and the army started using tear gas and rubber bullets. Then the protesters were splitting up, so the ISM volunteers split up too.
I ended up in a big olive field when we heard gunfire. There was screaming and people were panicking, running away. We saw two people dragged away by the crowd who were covered in blood.
When I got to the two men, they were completely lifeless. Arafat Khwaja, 21, had been shot in the back other reports suggest he had been shot in the chest and was dead. The other man, Mohamed Sadat Khwaja, was 19 and had been shot in the head. The funerals were held today.
The Palestinians I have spoken to refer to them as Shaheed, or martyrs. I think it's an attempt to turn something horrific and terrible into an act of defiance.
We have been positioned here because two children were killed by Israeli troops in summer, in the hope that our presence would help prevent further deaths. Yesterday's killings have come as a complete shock.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article