Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Palestinian Killed by Israeli Troops at Militant’s Funeral

Israeli troops killed a Palestinian stone-thrower and wounded several others in the occupied West Bank on Friday after a militant’s funeral turned violent, hospital officials and witnesses said.

An army spokeswoman confirmed soldiers opened fire during the incident at Beit Omar, near the Palestinian city of Hebron, saying they had feared for their lives as protesters threw rocks and petrol bombs and rolled burning car tires at them.

The slain 27-year-old Palestinian was a relative of the Islamic Jihad militant who was being buried. Their family said the militant had died of health problems that were neglected during his incarceration in an Israeli prison.

Israel’s Prisons Service denied this and said the militant had been freed from custody three months ago.

Palestinian witnesses and medical officials said the Israeli troops fired both live and rubber bullets in Friday’s incident.

The army spokeswoman said the soldiers at first used non-lethal “riot-dispersal means” but, with the Palestinians undeterred, resorted to shooting live small-caliber bullets.

These were aimed at the lower body of the Palestinians targeted, she said, and soldiers had reported four hits. The Israeli army had heard of a Palestinian fatality in the incident and was investigating, she said.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.