A Palestinian man was shot and killed by Israeli forces during an overnight raid in the al-Faraa refugee camp in the northern occupied West Bank district of Tubas on Tuesday, Israeli and Palestinian sources reported, although they widely diverged over the circumstances of the man’s death.
A member of the politburo of the Palestinian People’s Party (PPP), Khalid Mansour, told Ma’an that an Israeli intelligence officer “executed” Muhammad al-Salihi, 32, during a raid in his home. Al-Salihi and his mother were surprised when Israeli forces entered and ransacked their homes, Mansour said.”Muhammad started to shout at them because he thought they were thieves, and the soldiers immediately showered him with bullets at point-blank range, before the very eyes of his elderly mother,” Mansour recounted. According to the PPP official, medical sources at the Turkish hospital in Tubas said al-Salihi had been shot at least six times, including in the upper body.
An Israeli army spokesperson, meanwhile, told Ma’an that a Palestinian advanced towards Israeli troops holding a knife during an army detention raid in al-Faraa. She said that al-Salihi did not heed calls by the soldiers asking him to halt, leading the soldiers to shoot and kill him.The deadly altercation did not take place inside a home, the spokesperson said, contradicting Palestinian accounts.The Israeli army added that no Israelis were injured in the incident.
Al-Salihi’s funeral was set to be held after midday prayer on Tuesday. Al-Salihi spent three years in Israeli prisons. He was living with his parents in al-Faraa, when his father died several months ago.
Rights groups have repeatedly denounced what they have termed Israeli forces’ “shoot-to-kill” policy against Palestinians who did not constitute a threat at the time of their death or who could have been subdued in a non-lethal manner.
