Al-Jazeera / May 29, 2023
Ashraf Mohammad Ameen Ibrahim, 37, dies from gunshot wounds after a raid by Israeli forces on the Jenin refugee camp.
Ramallah, occupied West Bank – Israeli forces have killed a Palestinian man and injured others during an overnight raid on the Jenin refugee camp in the northern occupied West Bank.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health said on Monday that 37-year-old Ashraf Mohammad Ameen Ibrahim had died from gunshot wounds to his chest and stomach.
Ibrahim was an officer in the Palestinian Authority’s intelligence services, according to the authority’s news agency WAFA.
Hundreds of residents attended a funeral procession held for him hours after he was pronounced dead, and local officials in Jenin announced a daylong general strike.
The Israeli army raid began at 1:30am on Monday (22:30 GMT on Sunday) and lasted until 6am (03:00 GMT), during which fighting between soldiers and Palestinian armed resistance fighters broke out. It is unclear whether or how Ibrahim was involved in the fighting.
At least eight other Palestinian men were injured with live ammunition and six were arrested during the raid, during which Israeli snipers were stationed on rooftops, WAFA reported. The homes of those arrested were ransacked, local media images and videos showed.
Israeli forces carry out near-nightly raids on Palestinians in the occupied territories, often arresting multiple people.
They conducted military operations across the occupied West Bank overnight, arresting at least nine others in Nablus, Ramallah, Qalqilya and Hebron/Al-Khalil.
Ibrahim was a former prisoner who spent 11 years in Israeli prisons. He was arrested in 2006 and released in 2012 before being arrested again in 2014 and released in 2019, according to Palestinian prisoner groups.
Israel stepped up its raids in the West Bank starting in June 2021 to crack down on Palestinian resistance to its occupation, which was centred in the cities of Jenin and Nablus.
In 2022, Israeli forces killed more than 170 Palestinians, including at least 30 children, in occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank in what was described as the deadliest year for Palestinians living in those areas since 2006.
Since the start of 2023, Israeli forces have already killed at least 158 Palestinians, including 26 children, according to WAFA. The death toll also includes 36 Palestinians killed by the Israeli army during a four-day assault on the besieged Gaza Strip from May 9 to 13.
On January 26, Israeli troops killed 11 Palestinians in an attack on the Jenin refugee camp.
SOURCE: AL-JAZEERA
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Israeli forces kill Palestinian officer in clashes
Raneen Sawafta & Ronen Zvulun
Reuters / May 29, 2023
JENIN/HOMESH, West Bank – Israeli forces killed a Palestinian security officer during clashes in the occupied West Bank flashpoint city of Jenin on Monday, the Palestinian Fatah faction said in a statement.
The Israeli military said its forces had come under heavy Palestinian fire while seeking the arrest of security suspects in Jenin and had returned fire at the gunmen.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party identified the officer as Ashraf Sheikh Ibrahim, saying he had died “as he confronted the aggression and the occupation’s storming of the city of Jenin”.
Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade militant group, associated with Fatah, claimed him as a member.
In another part of the West Bank on Monday, Jewish settlers inaugurated a seminary in a settler outpost, drawing Palestinian condemnation and a reiteration of concern by the U.S.
In a video posted on social media, settler leader Yossi Dagan recited a Jewish benediction at the entrance to the Homesh seminary school, a large white prefabricated shack at the top of a West Bank hill.
“With God’s help … there will be many more new [Jewish] settlements in northern Samaria,” he said, referring to the West Bank by its biblical name. The new school was moved off privately owned Palestinian land to a new spot on the same hilltop around 150 metres away.
Repeating last week’s U.S. response, a State Department spokesperson said Washington was “deeply troubled” by the Israeli government’s recent order that allows its citizens to establish a permanent presence in the Homesh outpost, calling it inconsistent with previous Israeli commitments.
“The expansion of settlements undermines the geographic viability of a two-state solution, exacerbates tensions, and further harms trust between the parties,” the spokesperson said.
Yesh Din, an Israeli rights group representing some of the Palestinian landowners, said that in its new location the seminary obstructs access to their property.
U.S.-led peace talks aimed at establishing a Palestinian state in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza broke down in 2014 and show little sign of revival, and Israeli-Palestinian violence has escalated over the past year.
Most countries deem Israel’s settlements illegal – a view Israel disputes. Palestinians say they eat away at the land they want for a future state and cite growing violence by settlers.
Abbas said Homesh must be removed. “Statements of condemnation are no longer enough in the face of the (Israeli) extremist right-wing government,” said his spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh.
In a bid to quell international concern, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Israel has no intention of building any new settlements as his nationalist-religious government has vowed to bolster existing ones.
Spokespeople for Netanyahu, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment on whether any of them had authorized the establishment of the new Homesh seminary.
“I think there are times when it’s preferable to talk less and do more,” Smotrich told reporters at a meeting of his pro-settler Jewish Zionism party, when asked who was behind the decision on Homesh.
Last week, Smotrich, who holds some West Bank powers, said Homesh had been officially added to settlement council land in order to work out a new building plan for the seminary school.
Reporting by Maayan Lubell, Dan Williams and Ali Sawafta; additional reporting by Henriette Chacar and Matt Spetalnick; editing by David Holmes and Deepa Babington
Israeli forces kill Palestinian officer in clashes | Reuters
