Mariam Barghouti
Mondoweiss / March 9, 2023
Israeli special forces ambushed three Palestinian resistance fighters in their car. The killing was so brutal that images of the slain fighters were asked not to be circulated out of respect.
On Thursday morning, March 9, just after dawn, Israeli special forces invaded Jaba’ in the Jenin district of the occupied West Bank and executed three Palestinian men suspected of being resistance fighters.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health (MOH) identified the men as Sufian Adnan Ismail Fakhouri, 26, Nayef Ahmad Yousef Malaysha, 25 and Ahmad Mohammad Theeb Fashafsha, 22.
A brutal assassination
At approximately 6:30 a.m. Israeli military media reported that Israeli forces had killed two “terrorists” inside their car.
The three men, Fakhouri, Malaysha, and Fashafsha, were killed inside a silver Honda. The ferocity of the attack was evidenced by the fact that the car was left without a roof or windows, and its interior was completely destroyed. As for the men inside it, the assassination was so brutal that the images of the three slain men after the attack were taken down, and journalists were requested not to share them out of respect for their families and community.
Shortly after the killing of the men, which took place at the entrance of the town of Jaba’, 8 km southwest of Jenin city, the Israeli military invaded Jaba’s old city and besieged a building allegedly housing an armed Palestinian fighter.
Armed confrontations ensued against the military incursion, and Israeli forces called for reinforcements during the assault. Israeli forces stationed snipers on residential buildings in which Palestinian civilians lived.
The men who were killed in Jaba’ were reportedly part of the Jenin Brigade, operating out of the Jenin refugee camp. In videos shared by local journalists on the scene, the men were placed in refrigerators as their mothers and other family members and friends took turns kissing their heads as a final farewell.
At the same time of the men’s extrajudicial execution, Israeli forces also invaded the village of Al-Yamoun, 9 km west of Jenin city, and injured one Palestinian with a bullet to the head. According to the Ibn Sina Hospital in Jenin, the injured man is in stable condition.
The men were buried at approximately 10:00 a.m. on Thursday morning.
The execution of the three men is reminiscent of a similar assassination on February 8, 2022, when resistance fighters Muhammad Dakhil, Adham Mabrouka, and Ashraf Mubaslat were riddled with bullets in their car in Nablus. The three fighters were co-founders of the Nablus Brigade, a local armed group that later reformed into Areen al-Usud, or the Lions’ Den.
Since the start of the year, 31 Palestinians have been killed in Jenin, averaging one person killed every other day since January 2.
In addition to the three men, another Palestinian teen, Walid Saad Daoud Nassar, 14, succumbed to wounds sustained during the Israeli invasion on Jenin two days prior, bringing the number of Palestinians killed since the start of the year to 78, 13 of whom are children and minors.
Mariam Barghouti is the Senior Palestine Correspondent for Mondoweiss
