March 01, 2022: Ammar Shafiq Abu Afifa, 21, was killed by Israeli soldiers near Beit Fajjar town, south of Bethlehem, in the occupied West Bank.
The Palestinian Civil Affairs Department said the soldiers shot Ammar and prevented Palestinian medics from reaching him before he bled to death.
The soldiers wrapped Ammar’s body with a plastic sheet and took it to an unknown destination.
According to allegations by the Israeli army, the soldiers “observed the young man hurling stones towards their direction and shot him.”
However, a cellphone video filmed from a distance shows Ammar walking away from the soldiers, not posing any threat before the person documenting the event started shouting at him, asking him to walk faster because the soldiers were approaching his direction.
The soldiers who fired several live rounds at the young man were far away, contradicting some Israeli claims.
His cousin described what happened as an assassination, especially since Ammar wasn’t posing any threat, and there were no protests in the area.
“He was just out there walking in the mountain area, the only place for us in the refugee camp to observe nature….”, he added, “Ammar was doing well in college. He also was an outgoing person; however, the soldiers decided to shoot him without any cause of justification, especially since the area was calm, and no protests were taking place….”
Palestine Technical University – Kadoorie said Ammar was one of its students studying Information Technology.
The Palestinian Foreign Affairs Ministry denounced the young man’s killing and described it as a coldblooded murder that reflects the illegal Israeli occupation’s real criminal and vicious nature.
It added that the killing is “state-sponsored terrorism” and held Israeli responsible for the deadly escalation and called on the International Community to intervene and end the Israeli crimes committed by the soldiers and the paramilitary colonizers.
The Ministry said these crimes are authorized and encouraged by the political and military leadership of his illegal occupation of Palestine.
On Tuesday at dawn, Palestinian medical sources have confirmed that Shadi Najm, 18, died from serious wounds he suffered on Monday night after the soldiers shot him with live rounds in Jenin city.
On Monday at night, the army killed Abdullah al-Hosary, 22, during a fire exchange with Israeli soldiers in Jenin, in the northern part of the occupied West Bank.
Ammar was from the al-‘Arroub refugee camp, north of Hebron, in the southern part of the occupied West Bank. Source: IMEMC