RAMALLAH: A Palestinian man was shot and killed by Israeli police in the early hours of Saturday at the entrance of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem.
Palestinian and Israeli sources disputed the circumstances that led to the killing of Mohammed Al-Osaibi, 26, an ethnic Bedouin Israeli citizen from the Negev region.
Talab Al-Sanee, a former Israeli lawmaker and the representative of Bedouin Arab villages of the Negev, told Arab News that Al-Osaibi was killed when he tried to intervene after seeing Israeli police and border guards assaulting a young Palestinian woman and trying to remove her from the mosque’s courtyards.
Israeli police said the man grabbed a gun from a police officer who had stopped him for questioning and managed to fire two shots before police killed him. Each side has vehemently rejected the other’s version.
“The police claim that he tried to snatch someone’s weapon is a lie and slander. The police, with their cameras, document everything big and small, and I challenge the police to show the video documenting the attempt to snatch a weapon, as they claim,” Al-Sanee, who is representing Al-Osaibi’s case, told Arab News.
“This heinous crime is a wake-up call and a natural result of the unbridled racist incitement against the Arab masses. What is required is the dismissal of Itamar Ben-Gvir, the racist minister of Israel’s national security, the biggest instigator against the Arab masses,” he said.
He called for the establishment of an independent investigation committee headed by a judge, and the strengthening of Muslim presence at Al-Aqsa.
He said some elements in the civil movement against the government “plan to form armed militias that obey the orders of the fascist Bin-Gvir.”
A Jerusalem police statement said the suspect was alone and had been stopped for questioning after the closing time of Al-Aqsa. “At some point, Al-Osaibi suddenly attacked one of the police officers who asked the suspect to come outside and tried to grab the secured gun on the policeman’s body. Al-Osaibi managed to take the weapon and fire two bullets from it,” it claimed.
The police officer “physically struggled with him” before a shot was fired at the man “and he was neutralized on the spot,” it said.
Videos shared on social media captured the sound of at least 11 gunshots in quick succession.
Al-Osaibi’s family has demanded that police release security footage of the incident to prove “the allegations that their son pulled a soldier’s weapon,” but the police said there was no video of the incident.
A large group of Muslims staged a mass prayer outside the holy site after the incident, video from the scene showed.
Local authorities in Al-Osaibi’s native region of Rahat in Negev called for a general strike on Sunday in protest.
Palestinian presidency spokesperson Nabil Abu Rudeineh warned in a statement against what he described as “the dangerous escalation by the Israeli occupation authorities,” calling the Israeli version of the incident “fabricated.”
He said the Israeli escalation at Al-Aqsa Mosque could lead to an explosion of anger.
Since the beginning of the year, at least 90 Palestinians have been killed by Israelis.
Ayman Odeh, an Israeli-Arab parliamentarian, denounced the “cold-blooded murder” of Al-Osaibi and called it part of the occupation’s systematic anti-Palestinian policy. It warned that the current far-right government would escalate these crimes to set fire to the region to escape from its internal crises.
The Islamic Jihad Movement called the killing “a dangerous, aggressive escalation aimed at terrorizing worshipers,” while the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine warned of “severe repercussions.”
Meanwhile, the Returning to the Temple Mount group has announced a financial reward for those who manage to slaughter the Passover offerings inside Al-Aqsa Mosque.
“Financial compensation for every settler who can slaughter the Jewish Passover sacrifice inside Al-Aqsa courtyards, even if he tried and was stopped,” read a message on the group’s Facebook page.
“This is the time to sacrifice for Passover. If you succeed the prize is 20,000 shekels ($5,555). If you get arrested with a goat inside Al-Aqsa Mosque, 2,500 shekels ($694),” it said.
Hamas warned Israel following the settlers’ threat.
Its spokesman for Jerusalem, Mohammed Hamada, said: “Our Palestinian people will not remain silent in the face of settlers’ threats to slaughter sacrifices in Al-Aqsa Mosque.
“The occupation must know very well that its desecration of the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque will be met with a reaction.”
On Wednesday evening, 15 rabbis sent a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Ben-Gvir requesting that settlers be allowed to slaughter this year’s Passover offerings on the “Temple Mount”, or Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Israeli police kill Palestinian at Al-Aqsa entrance
https://arab.news/nxs2v
Israeli police kill Palestinian at Al-Aqsa entrance
- Palestinian and Israeli sources disputed the circumstances that led to the killing of Mohammed Al-Osaibi, 26
- Settlers group announces rewards for those who can offer Passover sacrifices inside mosque
Israel sends more troops into north Gaza, deepens raid
Residents of Jabalia in northern Gaza said Israeli tanks had reached the heart of the camp, using heavy air and ground fire, after pushing through suburbs and residential districts.
They added that the Israeli army was destroying dozens of houses on a daily basis, sometimes from the air and the ground and by placing bombs in buildings then detonating them remotely.
The Israeli military said its forces, which have been operating in Jabalia for the past two weeks, killed dozens of militants in close-quarters combat on Thursday and carried out aerial strikes and dismantled military infrastructure.
The escalation of Israel’s Jabalia operation came a day after it said it had killed the country’s number one enemy, Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’s chief, whom it blamed for ordering the Oct 7 attack on Israel, the deadliest in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Israeli military says its operation in Jabalia is intended to stop Hamas fighters from regrouping for more attacks.
Residents said Israeli forces had effectively isolated the far northern Gazan towns of Beit Hanoun, Jabalia, and Beit Lahiya from Gaza City, blocking movement except for those families heeding evacuation orders and leaving the three towns.
Appeal for immediate hospital supplies
On Friday, health officials appealed for fuel, medical supplies and food to be sent immediately to three northern Gaza hospitals overwhelmed by the number of patients and injuries.
At the Kamal Adwan Hospital, medics had to replace children in intensive care with more critical cases of adults badly wounded by Israeli air strikes on a school sheltering displaced Palestinians in Jabalia on Thursday, killing 28 people.
The children were moved to another division inside the facility, where they were being well taken care of, he said.
“All those cases are critical and they need medical intervention,” said Hussam Abu Safiya, Kamal Adwan’s director in a video sent to the media.
Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA, said on X that the attack on the school was the third on an UNRWA facility this week, adding the agency had now lost a total of 231 team members in the past year of fighting.
Abu Safiya said 300 medical staff, who had been working for 14 days, were becoming too exhausted, especially at the failure of the hospital to provide them with adequate food as all supplies were depleting.
Doctors at the Kamal Adwan, Al-Awda and Indonesian hospitals have refused to leave their patients despite evacuation orders issued by the Israeli military at the start of its Jabalia push.
Northern Gaza, which had been home to well over half the territory’s 2.3 million people, was bombed to rubble in the first phase of Israel’s assault on the territory a year ago.
Israel began its military campaign after the Oct. 7 attacks on southern Israel by Hamas-led fighters, who killed 1,200 people and captured 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
More than 42,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s offensive so far, according to Gaza’s health authorities.
Hamas official says group cannot be eliminated, does not confirm Sinwar’s death
“Hamas is a liberation movement led by people looking for freedom and dignity, and this cannot be eliminated,” Basem Naim, senior member of Hamas’s political bureau, told AFP.
In a statement, he listed several Hamas leaders killed in the past, and said their deaths had boosted the group’s popularity.
“It seems that Israel believes that killing our leaders means the end of our movement and the struggle of the Palestinian people,” Naim said.
“Hamas each time became stronger and more popular, and these leaders became an icon for future generations to continue the journey toward a free Palestine.”
What we know about the killing of Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar
- Sinwar met his end at the hands of a routine patrol on Wednesday
Jerusalem: The Israeli military announced the death of Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar, mastermind of the October 7 attack, after a group of soldiers killed him in a surprise firefight in southern Gaza’s Rafah.
His death represents a massive blow to the Palestinian militant movement that has waged a war with Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip for more than a year now.
Here is what we know about the killing of Israel’s most wanted man.
According to the Israeli military, Sinwar met his end at the hands of a routine patrol on Wednesday.
It said a group of soldiers of the 828th Brigade (Bislach) was moving through the city of Rafah when it came across three Palestinian militants.
Israeli media and military officials said there was no prior intelligence pointing to Sinwar’s presence in the area.
“Sinwar hid in places that our forces have explored over a long period of time,” military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said during a briefing Thursday.
“The forces identified three terrorists who were going from home to home on the run,” Hagari said.
As the soldiers chased them, Sinwar split from the other two, public broadcaster Kan reported.
A tank fired at a building in which two of the militants hid, while Sinwar took cover in another house, it said.
“Sinwar ran away alone into one of the buildings and our forces scanned the area with a drone,” Hagari said.
Drone footage released by the military showed Sinwar covered in dust sitting in an armchair staring down a drone as the device entered the house devastated by strikes.
The grainy footage showed Sinwar alone with one hand severely injured and his head covered in a traditional scarf, throwing a stick at the approaching drone during his final moments.
“We identified him as a terrorist inside a building and we shot into the building and we entered to scan the area. We found him with a gun and 40 thousand shekels ($10,750),” said Hagari.
Unverified images circulating online showed Israeli soldiers circled around the mangled corpse of a man resembling Sinwar who appeared to have suffered a severe head wound.
The man was wearing a chunky watch and surrounded by rubble.
The military conducted immediate DNA testing along with dental examinations and other forensic enquiries that helped confirm Sinwar’s identity.
Later on Thursday, Sinwar’s body was brought to a laboratory in Israel’s commercial hub of Tel Aviv.
The initial findings described Sinwar’s physical condition as “good even though he had spent a long time in tunnels,” Kan reported.
Sinwar had not been seen in public since the war erupted with the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
The Israeli military and media regularly claimed he was hiding deep in the warren of tunnels under Gaza, while images released by the army showed CCTV footage of a man exiting from a tunnel it claimed was Sinwar.
There were also reports that Sinwar had surrounded himself with several hostages who were seized by militants during the October 7 onslaught.
But when Sinwar was finally cornered and killed, there were no captives by his side.
“In the building where the terrorists were eliminated, there were no signs of the presence of hostages in the area,” a military statement said on Thursday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu celebrated the killing of Sinwar and said his death could be the “beginning of the end” to the conflict.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant remained defiant in the wake of the killing, saying Israel would “pursue every terrorist and eliminate them” and bring back the hostages still held in Gaza.
Families of hostages, however, expressed concern over the fate of their loved ones as they called for a deal to secure their release.
At a Tel Aviv rally just hours after Sinwar’s death was announced, El-Sisil, 60, who gave only her first name, told AFP the killing presented a “once in a lifetime opportunity” for “a hostage deal to end the war.”
Hamas, meanwhile, has not confirmed its leader’s death.
Experts say it the group may bid its time before acknowledging his death, while his body remains with the Israeli military.
His killing so soon after the death of his predecessor, Ismail Haniyeh, in July also begs the question of who might succeed him.
UNIFIL vows to stay in Lebanon despite several ‘deliberate’ Israeli attacks
- UNIFIL spokesperson Andrea Tenenti: ‘We need to stay, they asked us to move’
GENEVA: A United Nations’ UNIFIL peacekeeping mission spokesperson on Friday said that the 10,000-strong mission would remain in Lebanon despite several direct attacks by Israeli forces in recent days which he described as deliberate.
“We need to stay, they asked us to move,” said UNIFIL spokesperson Andrea Tenenti by video link from Beirut. “The devastation and destruction of many villages along the Blue Line, and even beyond, is shocking,” he said, referring to a UN-mapped line separating Lebanon from Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
Asked about the downing of a drone near its ship off the Lebanese coast on Thursday, he said: “The drone was coming from the south but circling around the ship and getting very, very close, a few meters away from the ship.”
Israeli military kill two attackers crossing from Jordan’s Dead Sea area
- Two of them were killed after they opened fire on Israeli forces
DUBAI: The Israeli military identified what it called “a number of terrorists” crossing from Jordan into Israel south of the Dead Sea region and neutralized two of them after they opened fire on Israeli forces, the IDF said in a statement on Friday.
“IDF troops were dispatched to the scene and two terrorists who opened fire toward the troops were neutralized by the forces,” the military said.
“Additional forces have been dispatched to reinforce the area and are conducting searches on the ground and air for an additional terrorist who likely fled the scene.”
The latest incident follows a separate attack on Sept. 8 when a gunman from Jordan killed three Israeli civilians at the Allenby Bridge border crossing in the occupied West Bank before security forces shot him dead.
Anti-Israeli sentiment runs high in Jordan and the Allenby Bridge attack was the first of its kind along the border with Jordan since Oct. 7, 2023, when Palestinian Islamist group Hamas carried out an assault on southern Israel, sparking the war in Gaza that has escalated throughout the region.
Israel and Jordan signed a peace treaty in 1994 and have close security ties.
Dozens of trucks cross daily from Jordan, with goods from Jordan and the Gulf that supply both the West Bank and Israeli markets.
