Israeli Occupation Forces Assassinate Qassam Fighter in West Bank

[ 26/04/2010 - 10:03 AM ]

AL-KHALIL, (PIC)--

The Israeli occupation forces (IOF) assassinated at dawn Monday a Palestinian resistance fighter affiliated with the Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, called Ali Al-Suweiti during armed clashes with him in Beit Awa area, southwest of Al-Khalil city.

The Qassam Brigades confirmed the news and vowed to avenge Suweiti’s death.

The Palestinian information center (PIC) was told that Suweiti was assassinated after a large Israeli military force backed by helicopters encircled the house of prisoner Mahmoud Al-Suweiti, who is still in Israeli jails.

Palestinian eyewitnesses said more than 70 Israeli armored vehicles and bulldozers stormed Beit Awa area at an early hour in the morning and surrounded the house where Suweiti was at the time before demanding everyone inside it to surrender, but the residents refused to leave which prompted the Israeli troops to open fire at the house and force them out.

Suweiti, who was still inside, refused to surrender and engaged heroically in armed clashes for about four hours with the IOF troops.

Afterwards, the troops detonated the house killing Suweiti and detained his body for more than one hour before dragging him with ropes to his family.

The IOF troops closed all entrances to the town during the siege of the house and prevented medical crews and journalists from entering while the bulldozers demolished large part of the house.

Consequently, the town of Beit Awa witnessed violent confrontations between Palestinian young men and the troops which led to the injury of five Israeli soldiers with stones. Six young men also sustained different injuries during the events.

Thousands of angry Palestinians carried the body of martyr Suweiti on their shoulders as they were marching on the streets of the town and demanding revenge for the murder of the Qassam fighter.

Martyr Suweiti had been wanted by the IOF troops and Mahmoud Abbas’s militias for eight years on a charge of his affiliation with the armed wing of Hamas and he was the father of 17 sons and daughters.

In the same context, the Movement of Hamas accused the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority (PA) in Ramallah of helping the Israeli occupation in the assassination of Suweiti and held it along with Israel responsible for the consequences of the crime.

In a press statement to the PIC on Monday, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri condemned the assassination of Suweiti as a serious crime and a fruit of the security cooperation between Abbas’s authority and Israel, which is aimed to eliminate the resistance forces, especially the Qassam Brigades in the West Bank.

The spokesman noted that the martyr was wanted by both Abbas’s militias and the IOF troops, and stressed that such crimes would never succeed in undermining the Palestinian resistance.

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