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A FORMER AIDE of a lawmaker from Israel’s hard-right governing coalition was among two settlers arrested today over the killing of a 19-year-old Palestinian in the occupied West Bank, Israeli media reported.
Qusai Jamal Maatan was shot dead in Burqah, east of Ramallah, yesterday as armed settlers clashed with villagers.
The UN has warned of a dramatic spike in such cases since the most right-wing government in Israel’s history took power at the end of last year.
Israeli media reported that the main suspect in the deadly shooting had sustained injuries in the clashes and been admitted to hospital.
The second suspect had acted as spokesman to a member of parliament from the far-right Jewish Power party, whose leader Itamar Ben-Gvir is public security minister in the coalition government, the reports said.
At Saturday’s funeral, Palestinian mourners carried Maatan’s body through the streets wrapped in a black and white keffiyeh headscarf and Palestinian flag, an AFP journalist reported.
Since early last year, the West Bank has seen a string of attacks by Palestinians on Israeli targets, as well as violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinian communities and regular raids by Israeli forces who say they are pursuing militants.
In a statement today on the shooting, the Israeli army cited Palestinian reports and witnesses as saying that both sides had thrown stones at each other before the Israeli civilians had opened fire.
“As a result of the confrontation, a Palestinian was killed, four others were injured, and a Palestinian vehicle was found burned. Several Israeli civilians were injured from rocks hurled at them,” it said, adding security forces arrived after the shooting.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since the Six-Day War of 1967.
Excluding annexed east Jerusalem, the territory is home to nearly three million Palestinians and around 490,000 Israelis who live in settlements which are illegal under international law.
The last major case of Israeli settler violence against Palestinians occurred in June.
Revenge attacks on the West Bank village of Turmus Ayya and others followed the killing of four Israelis by Palestinian gunmen, which militant group Hamas said was in response to an Israeli army raid on Jenin refugee camp which killed six Palestinians.
The UN humanitarian agency OCHA yesterday said it had recorded 591 settler-related “incidents” in the West Bank in the first six months of 2023 resulting in Palestinian casualties, property damage, or both.
“That’s an average of 99 incidents every month, and a 39-percent-increase compared with the monthly average of the whole of 2022, which is 71,” spokesman Jens Laerke said.
Also on Friday, the Palestinian health ministry said Israeli soldiers shot dead Mahmoud Abu Saan, 18, in the West Bank city of Tulkarm. The Israeli army said “suspects fired and hurled explosives and stones” at patrolling soldiers “who responded with live fire”.
Friday’s killings came three days after a Palestinian gunman wounded six people in a shooting at an Israeli settlement in the West Bank before being shot dead himself.
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Wonderful news! Common sense prevails. Rare but very very welcome.
This is great. If the kids with down Syndrome receive and are given the opportunity of a decent education then they will be fairly independent in later life.
They can hold down jobs and live a full and contribute to society.
Unfortunately the journal are jumping the gun on this one,while the bill will go uncontested,Minister Quinn have pulled the rug from under our feet,his new ‘special needs’ plan will precede all the that Finian McGrath has worked for and our kids will be at the bottom of the pile again,
cheers Ruairi,karma will win this one,I have no doubt!!!!
Seriously Nichola? That is a horrible thing for government to do.
That’s a start lets wait and see what Quinn has in store though. It would be really lovely if we as parents didn’t have to meet with the department inspectors to argue the case for keeping our child’s special needs assistant too.
Some good news :)
While this is very good news for children with Down’s syndrome and welcome, why is this only being offered to children with this specific diagnosis? There are many children who do not have an SNA or adequate resource hours at school because they “only” have mild intellectual disability.
The only reason for it coming up it is due to the very hard work of a group of parents and Down Syndrome Ireland supporters .
If this comes to into place then it points the way to all other interested groups. Everybody wants what’s best for every child no matter what their needs are.
The reason this is aimed at children with Down Syndrome was because Down Syndrome was not classified as a low incident disability and so resource hours were not guaranteed. This has now changed. Psychological assessments are used also in order to allocated resource hours presently. It’s true that you need a lobby group to enforce change but there are lots of groups out there who include all disabilities who could lobby on behalf of other children.
I am totally in favour of any resources being made available for people with disabilities but surely it would make more sense to provide resources to people depending on their level of intellectual disability rather than what disability they have i.e down syndrome. What about every other child who are born in this country with an intellectual disability that is an unknown syndrome or disorder. Surely more resources should be made available for them too. They should be passing a bill for mainstream schooling for people with mild to moderate intellectual disabilities, so every child is giving the chance not just down syndrome specific
Great news for those waiting for many years BUT ELECTION IS ON ITS WAY,,,
have your say