Jerusalem24 – 40-year-old Hamdi Shaker Abu Dayyah, a Palestinian security member, was shot and killed on Tuesday morning after exchanging fire with Israeli soldiers who were stationed at a checkpoint at the Nabi Younis entrance to the town of Halhoul, near Hebron in the southern occupied West Bank.
An unnamed source at the scene said “a man went down with a Carlo [homemade weapon], exchanged fire, and was killed.”
Eyewitnesses told Wafa News Agency that Israeli army prevented ambulance crews from treating Abu Dayyah at the scene. The Israeli military detained his body, and the Palestinian Ministry of Health were informed of his death by Israeli authorities at midday on Tuesday.
The Israeli military have said they are now “investigating” whether Abu Dayyah was behind a shooting which targeted an Israeli settler bus in the area on Sunday.
15 Palestinians have now been shot and killed by the Israeli military since the beginning of the new year, including four children.
Abu Dayyah was arrested as a teenager in the 12th grade at a military checkpoint in Halhoul. He then spent around four years in Israeli prisons, according to an interview – undated – he gave as a police member.
“The most precious thing is to own your freedom, only those who are denied freedom, appreciate it,” Abu Dayyah said in the interview.
Collateral damage
An eyewitness told Al-Quds News the Israeli soldiers also targeted their vehicle and injured her son and daughter.
“We heard gunshots and immediately put our heads down. When I looked up a man was laying on the ground. My son was grazed by a bullet in the shoulder and my daughter in the head.”
Increased involvement of PA security members in fire-exchange
Last year, Israel noted with concern the increased involvement of members of the PA’s security forces in exchanges of fire with Israeli soldiers, as the army conducted nightly raids in the West Bank.
On 14 September 2023, Two Palestinian gunmen and one Israeli army officer were killed in an exchange of gunfire near the Jalameh checkpoint north of the occupied West Bank city of Jenin. One of the Palestinian gunmen, 23-year-old Abdul Rahman Hani Subhi Abed, was a member of the Palestinian military intelligence.
