Israel turns a birthday into a bloody day in northern West Bank : Peoples Dispatch
peoplesdispatch.org
The IOF’s new large-scale military operation in the occupied territory is in full swing, claiming the lives of more young Palestinian people and incarcerating dozens of others.

In occupied Palestine, a bullet may find its way into a young man just before he blows out the candles on his birthday.

Baraa Qabalan, 21, died on Monday, December 8, due to injuries he sustained the day before after being shot by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) at the entrance of Azoun town, east of Qalqilya governorate, in the northern occupied West Bank.

According to Baraa’s maternal uncle, the IOF opened fire on a car that he was getting into with his friends as they were heading to a restaurant in the city of Qalqilya to celebrate his birthday.

Baraa’s friend, Momen Abu Riyash, 19, who was with him in the car, passed away immediately, while another passenger, Mohammad Hussein was arrested by Israeli soldiers.

It is worth noting that the bodies of both Qabalan and Abu Riyash have been withheld by the IOF since Sunday.

Renewed military campaign in the West Bank

The bloody birthday came several days after the Israeli military launched a new extensive military campaign in the northern areas of the occupied West Bank, to allegedly prevent emergent Palestinian resistance groups from being established.

The deadly campaign seems to have expanded to other areas of the West Bank in the days preceding the killing of Baraa and his friend.

On Saturday, December 6, Ahmad Al-Rajabi, 17, and Ziad Abu Dawoud, 55, were killed by IOF gunfire in Bab Al-Zawiya neighborhood, in the southern governorate of Hebron.

On Friday, December 5, Bahaa Rashid, 38, was shot dead by Israeli soldiers, during clashes in the village of Odala, south of the northern governorate of Nablus. A number of other Palestinians were injured in attacks carried out by the IOF in different parts of the West Bank that same day.

Media reports surfaced on Wednesday, December 10, indicating that Israel’s wide-scale military operation included the detention of nearly 100 Palestinians across the occupied territory.

Wednesday also saw the death of Palestinian prisoner Abdul Rahman Al-Sabateen, 21, from the southern governorate of Bethlehem, inside an Israeli jail in Jerusalem.

Read More: After the “Iron Wall”: Israel launches another large-scale operation in northern West Bank

The incident raised the official death toll of Palestinians who have passed away in Israeli prisons since October 7, 2023, to 100. The death of those political detainees was very likely caused by systematic torture and deliberate medical neglect.

The post Israel turns a birthday into a bloody day in northern West Bank appeared first on Peoples Dispatch.

From Peoples Dispatch via this RSS feed