IOF Shoot Dead Palestinian Civilian in Bethlehem

IOF Shoot Dead Palestinian Civilian in Bethlehem

Several Citizens Wounded, 15 Detained in Ramallah

Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) shot dead a Palestinian civilian, claiming he was about to stab soldiers near Bilal Ibn Rabah Mosque (Rachel’s Tomb) in the southern West Bank city of Bethlehem.

Witnesses said they had seen the body of the victim lying on the road before he was driven away in an Israeli ambulance.

Palestinian security officials said they were in contact with their Israeli counterparts to establish the identity of the victim who did not appear to have been carrying identification papers.

Later, Palestinian medical sources identified him as 32-year-old Mohamed Salahat.

Israeli sources claimed the victim was trying to stab an Israeli soldier.

Separately, IOF soldiers opened fire at hundreds of Palestinians who attended a memorial ceremony Wednesday on the second anniversary of the assassination of the Palestinian leader and member of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Abu Ali Mustafa in Ramallah city.

Leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) Abu Ali Mustafa was extra-judicially assassinated in an IOF air strike on August 27 two years ago.

Several hundred people gathered to hear speeches in the West Bank city’s main Manara Square.

Medical sources said several people were injured after the Israelis opened fire with rubber-coated bullets. The clashes began when the Israeli occupation army detained 15 PFLP activists in their nearby offices.

Ahmed Sa’adat, the PFLP present leader, addressed crowds from his Jericho prison cell on his mobile phone, which was linked up to loudspeakers in the center of Ramallah exactly two years after Abu Ali Mustafa was killed by Israeli forces.

The PFLP halted its attacks against Israel after signing up to a truce June 29, which collapsed last week after the IOF assassinated a senior Hamas leader in Gaza earlier this week.

Mustafa was killed in an Israeli army raid on August 27, 2001. He is the most prominent Palestinian killed by Israeli forces since the start of the uprising or intifada in September 2000.

Israeli troops had left the center of Ramallah by the time Sa’adat’s speech was relayed. Witnesses said that troops had opened fire with rubber-coated bullets after being pelted with stones.

One of those injured in the clashes, Palestinian journalist Jawdat Manaa, told AFP that he had been hit in the left hand.

Meanwhile, Israeli occupation soldiers dynamited a house in the northern West Bank town of Jenin, witnesses said. Jenin is subject to a strict curfew imposed by the IOF for the third consecutive day.

The house belongs to citizen Abbas Zakarneh.

IOF forced the fifteen family’s members out of their home at gunpoint, witnesses added. The explosion also damaged several nearby houses.

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