By Qais Abu Samra
NABLUS, Palestine (AA): A Palestinian was killed and twenty-three others were wounded, including two who suffered life-threatening wounds, Thursday by the Israeli army in the northern West Bank. A general one-day strike has been declared in the occupied West Bank city of Tubas.
“The young man, Ahmad Atef Daraghmeh, 23, was shot dead by the Israeli army during a raid on the city of Nablus,” the official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.
According to the agency, Daraghmeh was a football player on the Thaqafi Tulkarm team originally from the city of Tubas.
Eyewitnesses told Anadolu Agency that a large group of Israeli military forces stormed the site known as Joseph’s Tomb, east of Nablus, to secure settlers’ access to perform Talmudic prayers.
The army fired a barrage of live rounds, rubber-coated steel bullets, gas bombs, and concussion grenades.
Clashes broke out between dozens of Palestinians and the Israeli army, eyewitnesses added.
The religious site, which Jews call Joseph’s Tomb, has long been a flashpoint for violence.
The Israeli military allows Jews to visit as part of organized pilgrimages, despite the site being in Area A, where the Palestinian Authority has full control and prohibits Muslims from worshiping at the site.
Jews say the site is the burial place of the biblical patriarch Joseph. Muslims, however, challenge this assertion, saying an Islamic cleric – Sheikh Yussef Dawiqat – was buried at the site two centuries ago.
*Ikram Imane Kouachi in Ankara contributed to this report
Additional report from imemc.org
[Photo: Ahmad Daragmeh, footballer, shot dead by Israeli army in Nablus, by Israeli army on 22 December 2022. Photograph by imemc.org]
