By Ali Sawafta
JENIN, West Bank (Reuters) – A 16-year-old Palestinian girl who was killed in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin this week was shot dead by an Israeli sniper as she looked out of the window of her home, her father said on Wednesday.
The Israeli military has said it is looking into reports of the death of Lujain Osama Musleh on Tuesday, during a major operation in different areas of the West Bank involving hundreds of soldiers and armoured vehicles.
Osama Musleh said troops had surrounded the house next door to his when his daughter was shot through the forehead after opening the curtain to look outside.
“She didn’t go to the roof, she didn’t hurl a stone, and she wasn’t carrying a weapon,” he said. “She is 16 years old. The only thing she did is look from the window and the soldier saw her and shot her. One bullet that targeted her forehead.”
More than 30 Palestinians have been killed and dozens of arrests have been made during the operation, which began a week ago in different areas of the West Bank. Most have been claimed as members of armed Palestinian groups like Hamas, Islamic Jihad or Fatah but some, like Lujain, have been uninvolved civilians.
The Israeli military said it launched the operation, its biggest in the West Bank for months, to thwart Iranian-backed militant groups preparing attacks on Israeli civilians.
Over the past week, troops have fought gunbattles with Palestinian fighters, damaging houses and other buildings and tearing up large stretches of roadway in what it says is a hunt for improvised explosive devices.
SHORTAGES OF FOOD, WATER
Kamal Abu al-Rub, the governor of Jenin, said Israeli troops had made 12 major incursions into Jenin since the start of the Gaza war almost a year ago. “This is the most severe, the most painful and oppressive,” he told Reuters.
He said the operation, now in its eighth day, was causing major hardship to people in the city and the adjacent refugee camp, a densely populated area housing thousands of people whose families left their homes or were driven out during the 1948 Middle East war.
Privately organised aid trucks from other areas of the West Bank had helped alleviate some shortages of food and water and products such as baby formula but “arbitrary” controls were impeding deliveries in many areas.
“The situation of people in the besieged areas in particular is very difficult,” he said.
About 4,000-5,000 people had been ordered from their homes in the refugee area and the eastern part of Jenin city and were being put up in temporary accommodation arranged by the Palestinian Authority, he said.
In Tulkarm, another flashpoint city in the West Bank, the military said soldiers killed two armed fighters during an exchange of fire, finding an M-16 automatic rifle beside the men. In addition, soldiers located an explosive device in a baby stroller as well as an explosives laboratory.
Thousands of Palestinians have been arrested in raids and more than 680 – fighters and civilians – have been killed in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since the war in Gaza began nearly 11 months ago, according to Palestinian health ministry figures.
At the same time, dozens of Israelis have been killed in attacks by Palestinians.
(Writing by James Mackenzie, Editing by William Maclean)
Source Agencies
