Tempers flared after Israeli authorities fatally shot a Palestinian mom and her brother at a checkpoint between East Jerusalem and the West Bank on Wednesday after officials said one of them threw a knife at them.
“Officers and border policemen at the Qalandia checkpoint saw male and female (Palestinians) walking towards the passage for cars only, with the woman’s hand concealed in a purse and the man’s hand behind his back holding something,” police spokeswoman Luba Samri told AFP.
The Palestinians – a 23-year-old
mother of two and her 16-year-old brother – ignored orders to stop, she said.
“The female terrorist stopped a short distance from the officers, then walked the other way with the man, when she suddenly turned around to face the officers again, pulled a knife that was in her purse and threw it at an officer near her,” she said.
Two other knives were found in the boy’s belt, Samri said.
No Israelis were wounded.
Palestinian officials identified the woman as Maram Abu Ismail, 23, from the nearby West Bank village of Beit Surik, and her brother, Ibrahim Saleh Taha, 16.
Alaa Soboh, a Palestinian bus driver who said he witnessed the incident, told Reuters the pair appeared to be unfamiliar with crossing procedures.
“As soon as the two crossed, (Israeli forces) started screaming, ‘Go back! Go back!’ Then they began shooting. The first one they shot was the girl … the boy tried to go backward, when they fired seven bullets at him,” Soboh said.
The incident is the latest in a wave of violence that has killed 203 Palestinians, 28 Israelis and two visiting US citizens since October.
Most of the Palestinians killed were carrying out knife, gun or car-ramming attacks related to stalled statehood negotiations, the growth of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, stepped-up Jewish access to a disputed Jerusalem shrine, and Islamist-led calls for Israel’s destruction. YahooNews
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