Thousands of people participated in the funeral procession on Sunday for Mohammad Khaled Alasibi, a medical school graduate who was shot by occupation forces in East Jerusalem’s Old City overnight Friday. On Saturday the High Follow‑Up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel, called a general strike on Sunday, which applies to Arab businesses, municipalities, and educational institutions.

“Mohammad Alasibi was killed”, demonstrators in Jerusalem against the far-right government, Saturday, April 1, 2023 (Photo: Free Jerusalem)

Alasibi (26), from the town of Houra in the Negev in the south of Israel, was shot and killed by Israeli police around midnight while he was near Chain Gate, one of the gates leading into Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City. Police claimed Osaibi, who graduated from a medical school in Romania and recently passed an exam to practice medicine in Israel, attempted to snatch a weapon from a border guard when he was shot and killed. However, witnesses said the police killed Osaibi in cold blood and from a very short distance after he intervened to help a Palestinian woman who was being assaulted by the police and forced to leave Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Hadash-Ta’al chair, MK Ayman Odeh refuted the police allegations about Alasibi attempting to snatch the gun of a policeman, a justification the police gave to kill him. Odeh said Alasibi went to pray at al-Aqsa Mosque in this holy month, and that just because he wanted to help a woman who was being assaulted by the police, he was “executed” despite the fact he was unarmed “Everyone must understand that the occupation is the major continuous crime, and our issues will not end until it ends. All efforts must be directed to ending it,” he said. Hadash MK Aida Touma-Sliman tweeted that, “According to the eyewitnesses it was a cold-blooded murder, and the police are lying and smearing.”

Alasibi family has rejected the claim, saying he was a “normal kid, a medical student in Romania who returned for a month.” “One of Ben-Gvir’s racist policemen shot him…. Soon he will shoot us too,” a source close to the family told Maariv. The Arab rights group Mossawa Center accused police of “manipulating investigative materials and obstructing the investigation,” in a statement Sunday.

During the general strike on Sunday several protests were held in Arab localities. In Haifa, four people were arrested in the German Colony on Sunday night for reportedly “disturbing the peace,” according to police. Around 9 p.m., a protest was held in Haifa’s German Colony with hundreds of participants who carried Palestinian flags, among them Hadash chairman and former MK Issam Makhoul.