February 11, 2023: Mithqal Suleiman Abdel Halim Rayan, 27, was shot and killed on Saturday evening, by Israeli paramilitary invaders, in the village of Qarawat Bani Hassan, west of Salfit.
The mayor of Qarawat Bani Hassan, Ibrahim Asi, told the Palestinian Ma’an News Agency, “The young man was killed by a live bullet fired by an armed and angry settler towards a group of young men in the village.” He confirmed that the armed, paramilitary colonial settlers were guarded by the Israeli occupation forces as they carried out their assassination of the unarmed Palestinian civilian.
Mithqal Rayan was the father of three young children: a 4-year-old boy, a two-year-old son, and a baby girl.
Israeli colonizers have targeted the village of Qarawat Bani Hassan, west of Salfit, for their colony expansion. They have been forcibly expelling Palestinian landowners and taking over their land – claiming that their ancestors once lived there 2,000 years ago, so they have the right to take the land from its owners by force. Most of these paramilitary Israeli settlers come from Europe, the US and the former Soviet Union, with no direct or indirect ancestral ties to the land of Palestine.
Earlier on Saturday, Israeli colonial settlers uprooted dozens of Palestinian olive trees, and destroyed an agricultural building, as part of their forced takeover of Palestinian land in Qarawat Bani Hassan.
Israeli forces have been helping the Israeli paramilitary settlers in their forced takeover of Palestinian village land- last week, the soldiers uprooted an olive grove, and in January the army demolished a Palestinian home located in the area that the Israeli colonizers have targeted to take over.
Mithqal was from Qarawat Bani Hassan, west of Salfit in the central West Bank. Source: IMEMC