MEE Staff
Middle East Eye / November 29, 2022
The brothers were killed near Ramallah, while a third man died of bullet wounds to the head in Beit Ummar, Palestinian health ministry says.
Three Palestinians, including two brothers, were killed by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, the Palestinian health ministry has said.
Jawad and Thafer Abdul Rahman Rimawi, 22 and 21, were killed in Kafr Ein, near Ramallah, while Mufeed Mohammad Ikhlil, 44, died of bullet wounds to the head in Beit Ummar, near Hebron, the ministry said.
Jawad, a new business administration graduate from Birzeit University, was shot in the pelvis, and his bother Thafer, a fourth-year technology student at the same university, was shot in the chest, the ministry said.
Palestinian Authority civil affairs minister Hussein al Sheikh described the killing of the two brothers as an “execution in cold blood”.
A general strike was declared in Ramallah following the deaths.
The Palestinian news agency WAFA said nine other people were shot by live bullets in Beit Ummar, with one person hit in the chest and others in the upper and lower limbs.
The Israeli military did not confirm Ikhlil’s death, but said its troops had come under attack overnight when two military vehicles stalled just outside Beit Ummar.
Hamas, which governs the besieged Gaza Strip, said the Israeli “escalation” would be “confronted by escalating resistance” from Palestinians.
More than 150 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank and East Jerusalem by Israeli forces since the start of the year, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
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Two Palestinians shot dead in West Bank violence
The National / November 29, 2022
Incidents come as Netanyahu set to put right wing Ben-Gvir in charge of police.
At least two Palestinians have been shot dead in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Palestinian authorities said on Tuesday.
There were reports of two separate incidents involving fatalities, one near the village of Beit Ummar, near the West Bank city of Hebron/Al-Khalil, and another near Ramallah, in the village of Kafr Ein. The Palestinian Authority’s Health Ministry said two men had been killed.
The Israeli army said its vehicles had come under attack near Beit Ummar and had returned fire. Palestinian officials reported seven injured in the incident.
Palestinian towns in the West Bank have seen intensified raids by Israel since Palestinians carried out several street attacks in its cities in March.
The worsening violence comes as the incoming government of Benjamin Netanyahu is set to appoint Itamar Ben-Gvir in a new role of national security minister, which would entail overseeing Israeli police operations in the occupied West Bank.
Mr Ben-Gvir has a history of far-right extremist views, having been a member of Kach, a US and Israeli-designated terrorist group that was linked to the massacre of 29 worshippers at Al-Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron in 1994.
He has since claimed his views have moderated, saying that he no longer wants to deport Israeli-Arabs and that he has “grown up”.
But earlier this month, he was widely criticised for attending a memorial service for Kach founder Meir Kahane, an ultranationalist Rabbi who was charged with attempting to blow up the Iraqi embassy in Washington DC, before being assassinated in 1990.
On Tuesday, Israeli publication Haaretz reported Mr Ben-Gvir intended to appoint far-right agitator Chanamel Dorfman to a senior position in his National Security ministry. Mr Dorfman has been accused of instigating violence in the West Bank, including against the Israeli army, Haaretz reported.
More than 138 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli-Palestinian fighting in the West Bank and east Jerusalem this year, making it the deadliest year since 2006. The Israeli army says most of the Palestinians killed have been militants. But stone-throwing youths protesting Israeli army incursions and others not involved in confrontations have also been killed.
Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 June war, along with East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. The Palestinians seek those territories for their independent state.
