Israeli army kills unarmed 'mentally ill' Palestinian man

A Palestinian man who was shot by Israeli soldiers was on his way to prayers and clearly not a threat to the troops, Palestinians in the areas have said.

MENA

2 min read

The New Arab

27 August, 2016

Israeli troops in the West Bank city of Bethlehem [Anadolu]

Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian man in the occupied West Bank on Friday who was suffering from a "mental illness" and unarmed, Palestinian officials said.

The man was named as 38-year-old Iyad Zakariya Hamed, Haaretz reported.

While Israeli forces claim that Hamed ran towards a military post at the entrance to the village of Silwad, other witnesses say he was unarmed and clearly not a threat to the troops.

Challenging the Israeli narrative, the victim's family claim that his killing was an unprovoked attack initiated while Hamed was on his way to prayers.

"Just ten minutes before he went to pray, he dropped off some things he got from the supermarket," Jinan Hamed, a relative of the slain man told al-Jazeera."A little later, we heard about five shots."

According to the IDF spokeswoman quoted by Reuters, details of whether Hamed was armed "were still being checked". Elsewhere, Israel's YNet News reported that the troops who fired the shots were from the ultra-Orthodox Netzah Yehuda Battalion.

This latest incident follows the killing of 24-year-old Abu Ghurab by Israeli forces near an illegal Israeli settlement in the West Bank.

A wave of violence that started in October has killed 220 Palestinians, 34 Israelis, two Americans, an Eritrean and a Sudanese citizen.