BETHLEHEM, Thursday, March 31, 2022 (WAFA) – Israeli forces killed a Palestinian young man following an alleged stabbing attack south of Bethlehem city in the southern West Bank, according to WAFA correspondent.

He confirmed that Israeli soldiers opened gunned down Nidal Juma‘a Ja‘afra, a 30-year-old resident of the Hebron-district town of Tarqumiyah, near the Gush Etzion colonial settlement bloc.

Israeli media sources claimed that Ja‘afra was shot down after he allegedly stabbed and critically wounded an Israeli settler on a bus near the settlement bloc.

The circumstances surrounding the alleged stabbing attempt remain unclear and largely based on the Israeli version of events.

Israeli has been criticized for its reflexive use of lethal force and “extrajudicial killings” when Palestinian alleged attackers no longer pose an immediate threat. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that circumstances surrounding such killings over the past months remain disputed.

Video footage for similar alleged attacks appears to disapprove Israeli military claims, showing alleged Palestinian attackers did not even attempt to carry out any attacks. Some footage showed Israeli forces manipulating the crime scene following such killings.

Such Israeli measures, taken under the guise of security, are intended to entrench Israel’s 53-year-old military occupation of the West Bank and its settler-colonial project which it enforces with routine and frequently deadly violence against Palestinians.

K.F.