Jerusalem24 – A Palestinian man who was injured by Israeli gunfire last Tuesday during an Israeli military raid in Jenin in the occupied West Bank has died, the Palestinian Ministry of Health announced this morning.
24-year-old Hamad Mustafa Abu Jalda, from Jenin refugee camp, was wounded by Israeli gunfire when Israeli forces entered the area to carry out a punitive demolition of the family home of Raed Khazem, who killed three Israelis in a shooting attack on a bar in Tel Aviv in April.
29-year-old Mohammad Musa Mohammad Saba’ana was shot and killed during the same raid, and 16 others were injured including a paramedic, and Abu Jalda.
Abu Jalda was being treated at Jenin Governmental Hospital. He underwent several surgeries and was being treated in the intensive care unit.
The muezzins Jenin camp mourned Abu Jalda through the mosque loudspeakers and dozens of locals went to the hospital immediately after his death was announced, in preparation for a symbolic funeral procession to be held before his burial which took place later in the morning.
A mass demonstration was launched from the hospital ahead of the burial, with the crowd marching through the city and the camp and mourners carrying the body of Abu Jalda on their shoulders.
Fatah, Palestine’s leading political faction, announced a general strike in the city and confirmed that Abu Jalda was a member of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs brigades, the armed wing of the Fatah movement.
Abu Jalda was a liberated prisoner who spent two and a half years in Israeli prisons. He was married to a pregnant wife. He was named Hamad after his uncle, who was also killed by the Israeli military in 1992.
Abu Jalda becomes the 87th Palestinian to have been shot and killed by Israeli forces this year in the West Bank, a sharp increase over last year’s toll of 90 Palestinians shot and killed in the West Bank for the whole of 2021, and an average of 41 during the whole Netanyahu era.
In December 2021, the Israeli military changed its rules of engagement in the occupied West Bank, explicitly allowing its soldiers to shoot-to-kill Palestinians even if they are fleeing and presenting no danger.
US requests for Israel to review its rules of engagement after Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was shot and killed by an Israeli sniper in May were rebuffed last week by both Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid and Defense Minister Benny Gantz.
Speaking to a crowd of graduates at the Haifa Navy base last Wednesday, Lapid said: “I will not allow them to prosecute an IDF fighter who defended his life from the shooting of terrorists just in order to receive applause from abroad. No one will dictate to us how to open fire when we are fighting for our lives. Our fighters have the full backing of the Israeli government and the people of Israel.”
