Funerals held for Palestinians shot dead by Israeli forces last month

Thousands have held funerals for a number of Palestinians fatally shot by Israeli forces across the occupied West Bank last month after the Tel Aviv regime returned their bodies.

On Saturday, scores of people converged outside the Governmental Hospital in the Palestinian Christian town of Beit Jala, located 10 kilometers south of Jerusalem al-Quds, where Mohammad Tannuh’s corpse was being examined.

Waving the Palestinian national flag and that of the Fatah movement, the mourners then carried Tannuh’s body to Tuqu’ town, which is located 12 kilometers southeast of Bethlehem.

Israeli forces prevented the funeral marchers from passing on the main road of the town, forcing them to take another route to Tannuh’s house.

The mourners then carried out prayers, before burying Tannuh at the town’s cemetery.

Skirmishes broke out between Palestinian protesters and Israeli forces following the funeral, with Israeli troops firing live bullets, rubber-coated steel bullets, and tear gas canisters to disperse the crowd. There were no immediate reports of possible casualties.

Israeli military forces shot dead Tannuh in Tuqu’ on July 20 over an alleged stabbing attack against Israeli troops. Israeli authorities had been holding his corpse until Friday.

Elsewhere in the village of Marah Ma'alla, thousands of mourners attended the funeral for Abdullah Taqatqa.

A parade of cars transported the body of the slain 24-year-old Palestinian from the al-Hussein public hospital in Bethlehem to the village. The body was first taken to his family, where relatives and friends said their final farewells.

Mourners, waving the flags of Fatah and Hamas movements, carried Taqatqa’s body as they chanted anti-Israel slogans and vowed to retaliate for the killings of Taqatqa and other Palestinians.

Taqatqa was killed a week ago for allegedly attempting to carry out a stabbing attack against Israeli forces near Gush Etzion Junction in the southern West Bank.

Also in the southern West Bank city of al-Khalil (Hebron), a funeral was held for Rafaat Hirbawi, 29, who was killed on July 18 after a purported car-ramming attack that injured three Israeli troopers.

Moreover, Palestinian mourners carried the body of Ammar Khalil al-Tirawi, 34, in the West Bank village of Kafr Ayn near Ramallah.

Tirawi was killed by Israeli forces during clashes in the nearby village of Nabi Saleh on July 16. 

The occupied Palestinian territories have witnessed new tensions ever since Israeli forces introduced restrictions on the entry of Palestinian worshipers into the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in East Jerusalem al-Quds in August 2015.

More than 300 Palestinians have lost their lives at the hands of Israeli forces in the ongoing tensions since the beginning of October 2015.

The Tel Aviv regime has tried to change the demographic makeup of Jerusalem al-Quds over the past decades by constructing settlements, destroying historical sites and expelling the local Palestinian population. Palestinians say the Israeli measures are aimed at paving the way for the Judaization of the city.

The al-Aqsa Mosque compound is a flashpoint Islamic site, which is also holy to Jews. The mosque is Islam’s third holiest site after Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia.

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