News / Palestine

Israeli forces kill disabled Palestinian during raid on West Bank

Saturday, 14 December 2024 6:46 AM [ Last Update: Saturday, 14 December 2024 7:32 AM ]

The mother of Muhammad Ahmad Masalma holds his picture.

A young man with special disabilities has been shot and killed after Israeli forces launched a raid on the southern part of the occupied West Bank, according to health officials in the territory.

According to local eyewitnesses, Israeli special forces stormed the town of Beit Awa, located 22 kilometers (13.6 miles) west of al-Khalil, on Friday evening, and surrounded a paint shop.

During the raid, Muhammad Ahmad Masalma, a 23-year-old with learning difficulties, was hit by a bullet while Israeli troops arrested his cousin Thabet Masalma inside the shop.

Witnesses reported that Masalma tried to flee in fear at the moment of the incursion, but Israeli forces opened fire on him.

He suffered serious gunshot wounds as a result and was taken by ambulance to hospital.

Muhammad Rabi, the Director of Dura Governmental Hospital, said the young man was brought to the emergency department with critical gunshot wounds to the chest. However, he succumbed to his injuries shortly afterward.

Local eyewitnesses said Israeli soldiers also arrested another young man, identified as Mithaq Masalma, from the town during the incursion.

The aftermath of the shooting death of Muhammad Ahmad Masalma in the town of Beit Awa, southwest of al-Khalil, in the occupied West Bank.

Elsewhere in the Old City of al-Khalil, Israeli forces detained a young Palestinian man after assaulting him.

Local activist Aref Jaber said Israeli forces stopped a Palestinian in the Jaber neighborhood on Friday evening, violently beat him and then transferred him to a nearby detention camp.

The activist noted that Israeli forces regularly stop young men in the area, search their phones and invent excuses to assault or detain them.

He expressed serious concerns about the escalating violence by Israeli forces and illegal settlers against Palestinian residents in the Old City and its surrounding neighborhoods.

Since Israel unleashed a war on the besieged Gaza Strip in early October 2023, casualties have been rising in the West Bank as a result of intensified near-daily Israeli raids into villages and cities in the occupied territories.

At least 812 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli forces or extremist Jewish settlers since the war began. More than 6,450 Palestinians have been wounded as well, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

At least 44,875 Palestinians, most of them women and children, have also been killed in Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip during the regime’s genocidal war.

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