Son of Palestinian man killed in Jenin raid says PA 'abandoned' him

The son of slain Palestinian man Fathi Khazem has directed a scathing message at the Palestinian Authority, accusing it of abandoning his father before he was killed during an Israeli raid on his home in Jenin, in the northern occupied West Bank. 

In a lengthy Facebook post on Saturday, Humam Khazem detailed his father’s final years and criticised the Palestinian Authority for what he described as its failure to support him. 

Khazem said his father, Fathi, widely known among Palestinians as Abu Ra’ad, endured years of hardship before his death, alleging that promised support and protection were withdrawn despite his previous service as a colonel in the Palestinian Authority’s security forces. 

He said that following the killings of his brothers Ra’ad and Abdulrahman and the imprisonment of his sister Shaima, four of his father’s homes were demolished and he was subjected to multiple assassination attempts over a two-year period. 

“My father endured extremely difficult health and psychological conditions, until his situation became unbearable and he then went to Ramallah to receive treatment, where he remained for five months,” Khazem wrote. 

However, Khazem accused the PA of reducing its protection of his father after initially providing him with a vehicle and rented accommodation, along with other security arrangements. 

“After just five months, the house and vehicle were taken away from him, and he was forced into retirement,” Khazem added. 

“My father returned to Jenin and spent two and a half years living in a small house that was unfit for habitation — even the rats could not bear to live there.” 

Khazem claimed that the PA had “abandoned him without any warning, after trying to break his will”, while alleging that his father’s subsequent death at the hands of Israeli forces was also premeditated. 

“We believe that the operation to target him was planned and deliberate, and that those who carried it out waited for the right moment to do what they intended against a man who had endured imprisonment, injury, loss, displacement and pursuit,” Khazem wrote. 

“While the Palestinian Authority says that he 'died', we insist that our father was killed and deliberately targeted in cold blood.” 

The Palestinian Authority has not yet publicly responded to Khazem’s allegations. The Israeli army claimed that a man attempted to stab one of its soldiers in the raid, prompting troops to open fire and “neutralise” him.  It did not identify Fathi Khazem by name. 

Abu Ra’ad became widely known after his son Ra’ad carried out a shooting attack in central Tel Aviv in April 2022 that killed three Israelis and wounded others before he was killed by Israeli forces. 

His second son, Abdulrahman, was killed in a clash with Israeli forces in September 2022, months after Ra’ad’s death, amid his alleged affiliation with armed groups based in Jenin.