March 09, 2022: Ahmad Hikmat Saif, 23, died from severe wounds he suffered a week earlier, after Israeli soldiers shot him in the village of Burqa northwest of Nablus, in the northern part of the occupied West Bank.
The soldiers shot Ahmad with three live rounds in the chest and abdomen during protests that erupted when the army invaded the village and attacked dozens of Palestinians who marched in solidarity with political prisoners held by Israel and facing constant violations of their rights.
Ahmad had undergone several surgeries and remained in a severe condition at the Intensive Care Unit in a hospital in Nablus until he succumbed to his serious wounds.
The medical director of the an-Najah Hospital in Nablus, Dr. Abdul-Karim Barqawi, said Ahmad suffered a gunshot wound to the spine before the bullet lodged in his lung and two bullets in the left thigh and leg.
He required twenty-five units of blood due to severe bleeding in the chest and abdomen and was hooked to respiratory machines but remained in a critical condition due to the severe damage to his internal organs.
Dr. Abdul-Karim added that Ahmad suffered severe bleeding when one of the bullets severed the main artery and required intensive treatment of his internal organs severely damaged by the bullets.
It is worth mentioning that Ahmad was shot on March 1st, just hours after his engagement when he participated in a nonviolent procession in Burqa in solidarity with the Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails.
“I was sitting with him just a few hours before he was shot, we were talking about our future, dreams… and I wanted to accompany him to Burqa, but when I heard that the army was isolating it, I decided to stay because I was afraid I won’t make it back home in Nablus,” his fiancé said, “Just a few hours later, I was told he was shot by the soldiers and is in a critical condition.”
“I went to the hospital, I waited by the surgery room, and I saw the doctors taking him to the Intensive Care Unit…,” she added, “our official engagement ceremony and the party was scheduled for this coming June, but now they took him away from me…”
Burqa and surrounding villages witness constant Israeli invasions and violations by the soldiers and the illegal colonialist settlers, who repeatedly try to reoccupy Palestinian lands in and around the location of the former Homesh colony, which Israel evacuated in the year 2005.
Ahmad was from Burqa village, north of Nablus. Source: IMEMC