RAMALLAH: The killing of a Palestinian woman, along with eight men, by Israeli soldiers during Thursday’s attack on Jenin has been widely condemned.
Majida Obaid, 61, was inside her house and posed no danger to the attacking force, Palestinian sources in Jenin told Arab News.
The killing has left people in the city, as well as her family, in a deep state of shock.
Her daughter, Kifaya Obaid, 26, a government employee, told Arab News that around 9 a.m. after her mother had finished prayers, she heard heavy gunfire in the area directly opposite their house.
“She opened a window to find out what was going on. And I was surprised that after less than a minute that she was hit with a bullet in her neck. She fell off the chair on the ground bleeding.”
Kifaya started screaming and tried to close the bleeding wound with her hands. Volunteer paramedics came in to provide first aid, but the Israeli forces began shooting at them. They pulled Majida out of the room to avoid being hit again.
Majida, a mother of five daughters and a son, lived in Jenin with two of her daughters, Kifaya and Shireen.
Kifaya described her mother as a simple, religious person who always prayed to God to die a martyr. She was fasting when she was killed, Kifaya said.
“This is the first time the Israeli soldiers targeted my house and my family with such brutality; they were shooting at every moving target,” Kifaya said.
“A house without the mother’s presence would be difficult to live in, but I am proud that I became a martyr’s daughter,” Kifaya said.
As soon as her death was confirmed, her father, 58-year-old Omar Obaid, who works in a factory in Israel, returned home to attend his wife’s funeral.
One of their married daughters lives in Beersheba, southern Israel, and another in Jordan. The funeral was delayed until the family members arrived.
Kifaya said she could still not understand why Israeli soldiers would target her mother while she was inside her house, adding she was unsure whether there would be a fair investigation into the killing.
“I do not trust their investigations because no one is held accountable. The example of what happened to Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh confirms my belief,” she said.
Abu Akleh, a Palestinian American journalist who worked as a reporter for Al Jazeera for 25 years, was killed by an Israeli soldier on May 11, 2022, while reporting on an Israeli raid in Jenin.
Omar Obeid told Arab News that the “despicable Israeli occupation does not discriminate between a woman or a child.”
He added: “What do we expect from these haters? Majida was sitting in her house when bullets were fired at her directly, killing her. She did not resist and did not shoot at the army to be targeted in such a horrible manner.
“We do not trust their investigations. They were shooting randomly, and no army in the world shoots randomly like these killers.
“I never expected that this would happen. My life will be difficult and harsh after her death, and I will miss her a lot.”
Majida is the first woman to be killed in Jenin this year. Last year, the total death toll in the city as a result of clashes with Israel reached 59, including 34 civilians.
