Israeli troops shoot and abduct Palestinian man near Qalqilia

Monday June 20, 2011 18:26 by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC News

A Palestinian man was severely injured when Israeli soldiers shot him in the legs for allegedly carrying a knife at a checkpoint near the northern West Bank city of Qalqilia on Sunday.

Map of Qalqilia, surrounded by the Israeli Wall (satellite image from localyte)

According to local sources, the man was identified as Mahdi Abdul-Lateef Muhammed Amir, 22. After the Israeli soldiers shot him in the legs, they took him in an armored vehicle to an unknown destination.

While an Israeli military spokesperson claimed that Amir ran toward an Israeli military coordination post with a knife shouting “Allahu Akbar”, but that claim was not verified by eyewitnesses.

Israeli military 'coordination offices' are flashpoints for tension in the occupied West Bank, as Palestinians are forced to wait long hours in the heat, crowded into cages, in order to get work permits, travel permits, ambulance permission for medical care, driving permits, id cards, vehicle registration, and birth and death certificates from the Israeli military authorities at these coordination posts.

The coordination posts are in military bases on Israeli settlements, and Palestinians must carefully navigate Jewish-only roads and checkpoints in order to reach these 'coordination offices'.

A closure was placed on the entire area by the Israeli military forces for the remainder of the day.

Qalqilia has been completely surrounded by the Israeli Annexation Wall since 2002, and the isolation of the city has devastated the economy and farmland of its 40,000 inhabitants, creating a desperate situation in which the inhabitants of Qalqilia do not have access to the outside world. Rates of unemployment and depression are both at all-time highs in the city.

qalqilia | israeli attacks | news report saed at imemc dot org