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The
Israeli military said soldiers shot at suspects who fired and
hurled explosives and stones at troops operating around the
northern West Bank city of Tulkarm. It said hits were identified
but reported no injuries to its forces.
The health ministry said Mahmoud Abu Sa'an was shot in the head
in Tulkarm, during what the official Palestinian news agency
WAFA said was a military operation in a nearby refugee camp that
led to confrontations with Palestinians.
One mourner, Amjad Zeidan, who said he witnessed the incident
from about 200 meters away, added that he did not see Abu Sa'an
carrying weapons or explosives.
"I can still see his image," Zeidan said, choking back his
tears, as mourners trickled into the family's home to pay their
respects. "As soon as I saw him laying on the ground, I said
'May Allah have mercy on him'."
Some 40,700 Palestinians are registered with the United Nations
agency for Palestinian refugees in two camps in the Tulkarm
area. They are Palestinian refugees, or their descendants, who
were forced out or fled their homes during the 1948 war
surrounding Israel's creation.
Violence in the West Bank has worsened over the past 15 months
amid stepped-up Israeli raids, Palestinian street attacks and
rampages by Jewish settlers on Palestinian villages.
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry described Abu Sa'an's killing
as a "field execution" and called on the International Criminal
Court to "break its silence and promptly complete its
investigation into the crimes of the occupation".
The Islamist Hamas movement, which governs blockaded Gaza,
mourned Abu Sa'an but did not claim him as a member. "Our people
will continue their revolution until the occupation ends," it
said in a statement.
Israel occupied the West Bank, among territories the
Palestinians want for an independent state, in a 1967 Middle
East war. It has continued to build Jewish settlements there,
which most countries deem illegal.
(Reporting by Raneen Sawafta and Ali Sawafta; Additional
reporting and writing by Henriette Chacar; Editing by Andrew
Cawthorne and Hugh Lawson)
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