Davin News Server

“When I saw the occupation soldiers shooting inside the room, I put my
head under the blanket and hid,” said Alaa Husseiniyya, 13, who
witnessed an Israeli military operation carried out by special forces
on Saturday in Jenin.

The operation took place in Jenin’s Jabariyat neighborhood, targeting
Palestinian resistance fighters who were in the vicinity of the house
where Alaa was sleeping alongside his uncles.

Alaa told Mondoweiss that Israeli soldiers raided the room in which he
and his uncles slept and started shooting at them randomly. Alaa
recounted that when he lifted the blanket from his head, he saw his
uncle, Majd Husseiniyya, wounded and lying on the ground. Beside him
was another man, Mujahid Balas, injured in both legs and lying on the
floor just outside the room.


The Israeli forces seized one of the injured men and strapped him to
the front of a military vehicle, driving around while parading him as
a human shield before eventually handing him over to Palestinian
medical teams, who transported him to a hospital in Jenin.


One eyewitness, who preferred to remain anonymous, told Mondoweiss
that the Israeli forces deliberately mistreated the injured man.

“They appeared to be toying with him for amusement,” the eyewitness
said, pointing out that the man was neither wanted nor a resistance
fighter, but an unarmed civilian. This was evidenced by the fact that
Israeli forces did not arrest him but handed him over to the
Palestinian ambulance after he had been left strapped to the front of
the vehicle for several minutes in the hot summer sun.

Ra’fat Husseiniyya, the owner of the home that was raided, said that
the young men were sleeping in his house as they did every night.
There army had nothing against them, and they were not suspected of
any resistance activity, Ra’fat said. But the Israeli special forces
shot them directly while they were sleeping. 

He went on to say that the soldiers interrogated him and asked him
about his relation to the men in the home. He told them that they were
his brothers and that there was no justification for raiding the house
and arresting them. He explained that the occupation army delayed
providing medical aid to his brother Majd for hours before
administering first aid to him.

According to the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Aharonoth, the Israeli army
is investigating the incident of the man strapped to the army vehicle.

During the Israeli operation, which lasted for about three hours, the
Israeli forces set fire to a civilian vehicle that was parked in front
of the besieged house. Armed clashes broke out between resistance
fighters and the Israeli soldiers after the special forces were
discovered by the resistance. The soldiers fired at civilians and
among the houses during these clashes.

During the raid, the Jenin Brigade announced via its Telegram channel
that it had discovered the special forces in the Jabariyat
neighborhood and engaged them in battle, targeting the invading force
with live ammunition and locally improvised explosive devices. Later,
the Brigade reported that it had targeted infantry soldiers,
confirming that it had inflicted casualties among them.

The Israeli forces arrested three young men during the raid on the
neighborhood, one of whom was the injured Majd Husseiniyya. The nature
of his injury is still unknown. The Israeli army transported him to
the hospital by helicopter at the Salem checkpoint, west of the city.

The family has stated that they have received no information about
Majd’s whereabouts or his health condition up to this point. No
official authority has contacted them to inform them about his
condition or to where he has been transferred.

The invasion of Jenin comes one day after an undercover Israeli
special force riding in a civilian vehicle with a Palestinian license
plate assassinated a leader of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades in
Qalqilya. During the Qalqilya operation, the army pursued a
Palestinian vehicle and fired at those inside, killing resistance
fighters Ihab Abu Hamed and Mahmoud Mansour. Their bodies were
confiscated by the army.

The Israeli army has increasingly employed tactics involving special
forces dressed in civilian attire or using Palestinian civilian
vehicles to conduct raids, particularly since October 7. This
escalation follows a heightened presence of armed resistance in
northern areas of the West Bank.

https://mondoweiss.net/2024/06/wounded-palestinian-man-strapped-to-front-of-israeli-army-vehicle-used-as-human-shield/