The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Wafa news agency)
Ramallah, August 16 (RHC)-- The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates has denounced the killing of a young man during an overnight Israeli military raid in al-Quds.
Mohammad Ibrahim Shaham, in his twenties, was killed by a bullet to the head early on Monday after Israeli forces violently broke into his family home in Kafr Aqab neighborhood of East al-Quds. The ministry said in a statement the killing was an “extrajudicial and premeditated assassination.”
Shaham was born in the nearby Qalandia refugee camp. “This heinous crime is an extension of the series of executions and field assassinations committed by the Israeli forces on instructions from the political level in the occupying power,” the statement read.
“The fact that the occupying forces have committed them in such a racist and heinous manner is further proof of the absence of international deterrence and international protection for our people, and of the international community's disregard for the crimes of the occupiers, the murder and assassinations that go on daily without any accountability or trial.”
The ministry said soldiers did not even try to arrest Shaham, but rather broke into his home with an intention to kill him. His father said an Israeli soldier shot Mohammad point-blank with a live round the moment he opened the door. The soldiers then forced their way into the house and ransacked the place. He was left bleeding on the ground for about 30 minutes before the regime forces withdrew his body.
Elsewhere in the statement, the ministry said it will follow up on the latest killing at all levels, especially The Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC), the Human Rights Council and other United Nations agencies.
Meanwhile, Hussein al-Sheikh, the secretary general of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), demanded in a post on Twitter an urgent international investigation into the killing. “The execution crime of Mohammad Shaham deserves an immediate and urgent international investigation.”
The recent killing comes amid tensions in the Palestinian territories following the arrest of a senior Islamic Jihad member and an Israeli onslaught against the Gaza Strip earlier this month. Bassem Saadi was arrested on August 1 by Israeli troops in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin.
In Gaza, Israel carried out airstrikes on August 5, killing nearly 50 people, including Taysir al-Jabari, a senior commander of Islamic Jihad. The airstrikes prompted the al-Quds Brigades, the Islamic Jihad’s military wing, to respond by firing hundreds of rockets toward the occupied territories. The retaliation, as was pledged by the resistance group, forced Tel Aviv to accept an Egyptian-mediated ceasefire, which took effect late on August 7.
