AL-QUDS (Dispatches) – The
Zionist regime’s police shot and martyred a Palestinian youth after they alleged he stabbed and wounded a regime police officer in East Al-Quds’ Old City on Sunday.
The police claimed in a statement that the 19-year-old approached two police officers stationed at one of the gates of East Al-Quds’ walled Old City and pulled out a knife and allegedly stabbed one of them, the statement said, adding that other police officers at the scene “responded by firing at him.”
Palestinian eyewitnesses said Zionist troops shot the young man and left him bleeding helplessly on the ground until he succumbed to his wounds.
They added that the troops then cordoned off the entire area, set up checkpoints and closed all gates leading to the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.
The Palestinian Hamas resistance movement praised the ‘heroic operation’ in the Old City of Al-Quds, and described it as a natural response to the ongoing crimes of the occupying Zionist regime against Palestinians.
“The holy city (of Al-Quds) is fighting to expel occupiers and preserve its Palestinian-Arab identity. This is an open battle with the occupation, which will not stop unless the primary goals of our nation, namely liberation of our lands, return of refugees and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with Al-Quds as its capital, are achieved,” Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said in a statement.
He stressed that “the blood of today’s martyr, which was shed at dawn on the soil of the Holy City, will preserve its identity and protect it against invaders and all attempts to seize it.”
“Such great sacrifices, which were embodied in today’s martyrdom, represent the Palestinians’ willingness to pay the price of cleansing the holy sites from the impurity of the Israeli occupation.”
Last week, the secretary general of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad resistance movement called upon all Palestinian fighters to defend the occupied city of Al-Quds and the scared Al-Aqsa Mosque against increasing attacks by extremist Zionist settlers and troops.
Speaking at a ceremony entitled “Resistance is the path to liberation” in Gaza City on February 28, Ziyad al-Nakhalah stated that demolition of Palestinian-owned homes across the West Bank and the killing of innocent people require Palestinian resistance fighters not to hesitate for a moment to fight the Zionist enemy and resist the regime’s actions through all available means.