By: IBRAHIM Jaafar
Israeli security personnel shot and killed a Palestinian woman at the Qalandia checkpoint in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday 18th September, 2019 morning, Israeli police and Palestinian witnesses narrated. Palestinian officials said she died of her injury, reports Reuters.
Witnesses told Middle East Eye that the woman was shot four times after missing a pedestrian lane at Qalandia, the most significant Israeli checkpoint separating East Jerusalem from the central West Bank.
'They were five soldiers and she was some seven metres away. They deliberately killed her' says, Mohammed Hammad Jaradat, a bystander.
The West Bank, among territories where Palestinians seek statehood, has seen simmering street violence since US-sponsored peace talks with Israel broke down in 2014.
Video circulated on social media, showed men with rifles confronting a woman. A shot is heard and she collapses, dropping something from her hand. One of the men then kicks the item out of reach.
Following the shooting, Israeli forces attacked Palestinian civilians in the area, sprayed tear gas, and prevented workers from entering the checkpoint, before closing it in both directions.
The West Bank had already been on lockdown on Tuesday for Israel's general election, barring an estimated 150,000 Palestinians with Israeli work permits from crossing through checkpoints according to Palestinian officials.
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Israeli forces killed 20 Palestinians in the West Bank this year as of 2 September.
With the continued silence or taking of little steps by international regulatory bodies to curb the Isreali criminalities, one will keep wondering that: has humanity in human race perished?