An elderly man identified as Anan Shawkat Innab, 66, died last night (Wednesday) of suffocation after inhaling teargas fired by the Israeli soldiers during their assault on Nablus earlier in the day raising the number of Palestinians killed in the Israeli assault to 11. The Palestinian Ministry of Health said Innab suffered from suffocation after inhaling teargas and was rushed to hospital in Nablus where he was pronounced dead in the evening.
Thousands participating in the funeral of the 11 Palestinians killed in the Israeli assault on Nablus. (Photo: WAFA)
The Israeli assault on the old city of Nablus yesterday resulted in the shooting and killing of 11 Palestinians, one of them 72 years of age, another 61, and a 16-year-old child, and more than 100 injuries, some of them critical to very critical. With Innab’s death, a total of 60 Palestinians has been killed by the Israeli army in the occupied West Bank since the start of the year, including 11 minors, one woman and three elderly men.
“Massacre” was the word common in the main headlines of the three Palestinian Arabic dailies published today. The word was describing the Israeli army assault on Nablus yesterday that resulted in the killing of 11 Palestinians. The papers published pictures from the assault and the funeral of the dead in which thousands of people took part. They also published reactions, local, Arab and international, to the assault all condemning it.
Al-Hayat al-Jadida daily said the Palestinian leadership called for an emergency meeting for the Arab League, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the United Nations Security Council to discuss the assault and to demand international protection for the Palestinian people. It quoted UN Secretary-General expressing concern following the killings in Nablus and said the status quo in Jerusalem should not be changed.
Al-Ayyam daily said a general strike and day of mourning was called for in the West Bank and Gaza today. It also said dozens were injured when Israeli soldiers suppressed protests in the West Bank against the massacre. Al-Quds daily said Israel approved the construction of thousands of housing units in its illegal settlements in the occupied territories.
MK Ofer Cassif (Hadash) on Thursday accused the occupation of ongoing “massacres” against Palestinian Arabs in order to promote what he described as the “regime coup”. In a tweet he posted, Cassif wrote, “The ongoing massacre in the occupied territories is political cynicism aimed at breaking the protest against the coup d’état and is intended to prepare an infrastructure for justifying another Nakba.”
“This is the malicious government’s plan: To massacre the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the occupied territories and to plunder the Arab citizens inside the Green Line using the National Guard of the Ben Gvir gang. We will not let them do so,” he added.
