An Israeli army unit killed on Monday morning Amjad Hinnawi, 32 from Nablus, leader of Al-Qassam brigades, the armed wing of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) in the West Bank, by shooting him from a point blank in the head, Palestinian News Network (PNN) reported.
An Israeli army force invaded the city of Nablus, surrounded a house, where Hinnawi was staying and asked everybody to come out of the house naked, eyewitnesses said, and added that Hinnawi was arrested without any resistance, but one Israeli soldier pointed a gun at Hinnawi’s head and executed him in front of the residents.
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Palestinian paramedics reported that the soldiers were very brutal.  ‘The soldiers demolished a wall on the body of Hinnawi, and forced his wife to stand on the rubble on top of her dead husband,’ one of the paramedics said.
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He added that after the assassination, the soldiers released dogs they had with them to attack the owner of the house, which Hinnawi was in, Ibrahim Kittaneh.
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According to the paramedics, the Israeli soldiers put the microphone of the Jeep’s loudspeaker close to Kittaneh’s mouth when he was crying after the dogs’ bites, so people in the neighborhood would hear him, adding that they did not allow any medical team to give an aide.
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The army force also arrested several Palestinians and searched several houses in the area.
Troops invaded the house of Al-Madbouh family, opened fire and threw concussion bombs in the hosue and arrested three brothers, Ihab, Ayman and Ihsan Al-Madbouh, and Ibrahim Al-Masri in Askar refugee camp in Nablus.
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Hinnawi is on the run since a long time, Palestinian sources said. He survived several assassination attempts, the latest was one year ago, when the Israeli army rounded him up in a building in Nablus, and heavily shelled it, but he managed to escape.
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Yasser Mansour leader of Hamas in Nablus described the killing of Hinnawi in front of the neighborhood residents, as ‘cold-blooded killing aimed to terrorize the residents.’
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He added that ‘This is a message to the Palestinian Authority and to all those who love peace, Israel understands nothing by weapons, blood, killing, arrests and home-demolition.’
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Al-Qassam brigades vowed vengeance to the assassination of Hinnawi, saying that Israel will experience a painful response to this assassination.
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Israeli army chief of Staff Dan Halutz said earlier that Israel will not stop the assassination policy against Palestinian resistance men.  Hamas, on the other hand, said this policy will hinder all truce efforts because Hamas will respond to the assassination which would cause the Israeli people tragedies.
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Hinnawi’s assassination marks the second cold-blooded killing in less than 12 hours.
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On Sunday night, The Palestinian News Agency, WAFA, reported that Shuja’ Bal’awy, 26, was shot by an undercover military unit from the Israeli army, and injured in his leg, near the southern entrance of Jenin.
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Bal’awy managed to escape and hide in a neighboring home, but the Special Forces broke into the home and shot him dead.
