EU urges probe into Israeli army fire that left Palestinian man quadriplegic

The European Union has called for an investigation into the shooting of a Palestinian man by Israeli military forces, which left him paralyzed from the neck down after an altercation over a portable electric generator in the occupied West Bank earlier in the week.

“The EU opposes such excessive and disproportionate use of force and calls on the Israeli authorities to swiftly and fully investigate this serious incident in order to bring the perpetrators to justice,” the European Union Delegation to the Palestinians wrote in a post published on its official Twitter page on Saturday.

The injuries he sustained left Haroun paralyzed from the neck down. The EU opposes such excessive and disproportionate use of force and calls on the Israeli authorities to swiftly and fully investigate this serious incident in order to bring the perpetrators to justice.

— EU and Palestinians (@EUpalestinians) January 2, 2021

The Palestinian Health Ministry said in a statement that 24-year-old Haroun Rasmi Abu Aram was shot through the neck in the village of Tuwanah, south of al-Khalil, on Friday.

The official Palestinian WAFA news agency reported that the young man had been attempting to prevent Israeli troops from “stealing an electric generator” that belonged to him.

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Israeli rights group B’Tselem said Abu Aram was helping a neighbor to build a house at the time of the shooting.

Witnesses confirmed the incident was triggered when Israeli forces tried to stop Palestinians building a house in the village, and seized an electricity generator belonging to Abu Aram.

Moreover, the Joint List, which is a political alliance of the main Arab-majority political parties in the Israeli Knesset (parliament), condemned the shooting, and its leader MK Ayman Odeh said the incident was part of an attempt by the Israeli army to rid Area C of the West Bank, which is under Israeli military’s control, of Palestinians.

Abu Aram “is another victim of the attempt to push the [Palestinian] villagers in Area C into cities [in Area C], and to seize as much territory as possible [there] with as few Palestinians as possible,” Odeh said.

“The only solution is an independent Palestinian state alongside the State of Israel,” he added.

Israel occupied East Jerusalem al-Quds, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip – besieged since 2007 – during the six-day Arab-Israeli war in 1967.

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Shortly after capturing East Jerusalem al-Quds, the Tel Aviv regime expanded the municipal boundaries of the city to take in large areas of land on which it later constructed settlements.

At the same time, it sharply limited the expansion of Palestinian neighborhoods, forcing many in the increasingly crowded areas to build illegally.

More than 600,000 Israelis live in over 230 illegal settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East Jerusalem al-Quds.

The UN Security Council has condemned Israel’s settlement activities in the occupied territories in several resolutions.

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