Israel Returns Body Of Jordanian Killed By Israeli Forces In East Jerusalem

Israeli authorities returned the body of a Jordanian citizen who was killed two days earlier to his family on Sunday, a lawyer for the Palestinian Committee of Prisoners’ Affairs said.

Muhammad Mahmoud said that the body of 28-year-old Said Hayil Amr, a native of the village of al-Mughayyir, was returned to Jordan on Sunday afternoon via the Allenby Bridge border crossing between Jordan and the occupied West Bank.

Israeli border police killed al-Amr on Friday, after he allegedly attempted to carry out a stabbing attack outside Damascus Gate in occupied East Jerusalem.

However, his family and witnesses have disputed the Israeli police version of the incident, saying that al-Amr did not constitute a threat at the time of his death and that the Jordanian citizen “never expressed extremist ideology, was never affiliated to any organization, or joined any political activities.”

Al-Amr was killed amid a three-day spike in violence which also saw the killing of four Palestinians at the hands of Israeli security forces.

The government on Saturday condemned the “barbaric” and “deliberate” killing of the Jordanian man, according to The Jordan Times.

Israeli forces shot Amro outside Al Aqsa Mosque, killing him instantly, his relatives told The Jordan Times.

The young man travelled to Jerusalem on Thursday to meet with relatives and visit Al Aqsa Mosque, according to his brother Abdullah.

In a related development, the Senate’s Palestine Committee on Sunday condemned what it called the “barbaric act” committed by Israeli forces in “deliberately shooting” Amro in the Bab Al Amoud (Damascus Gate).

The committee’s chair, Senator Nayef Qadi, said the “inhuman act” was “in violation of all international conventions”. He called on the government to take the necessary measures on the local and international fronts to “expose the acts of the Israeli occupation” in Jerusalem and Palestine, where Palestinians are being “murdered” and their properties transgressed upon.

Qadi also affirmed Jordan’s “unwavering” position in defending the rights and welfare of Palestinians, as well as its support for establishing an independent Palestinian state based on the June 4, 1967 lines, with Jerusalem as its capital.

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Muhammad Ahmad Abd al-Fattah al-Sarrahin, 30, died on Thursday after succumbing to gunshot wounds sustained earlier in the day when Israeli forces tried to detain him during a raid in the village of Beit Ula in the West Bank district of Hebron.

On Friday, Israeli forces shot and killed 18-year-old Fares Moussa Muhammad Khaddour and critically wounded his fiancee Raghad Abdullah Khaddour near 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 same day, Muhammad al-Rajabi, 15, was killed after he allegedly stabbed and lightly injured an Israeli soldier.

Meanwhile, Israeli forces killed Hatim Abd al-Hafeeth Shaludi, 25, in the Old City of Hebron on Saturday morning after an alleged stabbing attack.

Rights groups have denounced what they have termed a “shoot-to-kill” policy by the Israeli forces, which they say has led to the death of numerous Palestinians who did not constitute a threat or who could have been subdued in a non-lethal manner.

According to Ma’an documentation, at least 227 Palestinians have been killed by Israelis and some 32 Israelis have been killed by Palestinians since a wave of unrest first swept across the occupied Palestinian territory and Israel in October.

Five foreign nationals have also been killed in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory during the same time period, according to Ma’an documentation.