clear

Creating new perspectives since 2009

Israeli officer vows to impose collective punishment in Hebron

September 17, 2016 at 10:29 am

An Israeli officer has vowed that strict punishments would be imposed on Palestinian civilians living in villages where perpetrators of attacks on Israeli soldiers originated.

Israeli forces today shot and killed 18-year-old Moussa Muhammed Khaddour and critically wounded his fiancée Raghad Abdullah Khaddour, 18, at the entrance of the illegal Israeli settlement of Kiryat Arba just outside of Hebron’s Old City, after the two allegedly carried out a car ramming attack that left three Israeli civilians injured.

Less than an hour earlier, a Jordanian citizen was shot and killed by Israeli forces after allegedly carrying out a stabbing attack outside Damascus Gate in occupied East Jerusalem.

Hours later, another Palestinian man, who remains unidentified, was shot and killed in the Tel Rumeida area of Hebron’s Old City after reportedly stabbing and lightly injuring an Israeli soldier, just a short distance from the alleged car ramming attack in Kiryat Arba.

In a statement, Director of the Hebron district office for Israel’s Coordinator of Israeli Government’s Activities in the Territories (COGAT) Hariz Safadi said Israeli authorities could not rule out the possibility of imposing punitive measures in the villages where the slain Palestinians resided.

He added that the Israeli authorities had managed to “prove” the Khaddours had intended to carry out a car ramming attack and had ruled out the possibility that it was a road accident, without elaborating on how Israeli forces had come to the conclusion.

He said Israeli authorities “plan to impose punishments and security arrangements” on the Hebron-area village of Bani Naim, where the Khaddours were from, and its surrounding areas.