Palestinian sources reported that special units of the Israeli army assassinated an Aqsa Martyr Brigades operative on Thursday afternoon in Balata Refugee Camp, near the West Bank city of Nablus.
The sources said Ibrahim Hashash Samiri, 22 was shot dead by the troops while he was in his car in the camp. Palestine News Network reported that eyewitnesses said, gunmen with civilian clothes rounded Samiri and arrested him after he was injured by their fire.
Troops took Samiri to Huwwara military base near the city and later announced his death. The Ambulance driver of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, who brought the body of Samiri from the military base, said he received at least four bullets in the chest.
An Israeli army source said Samiri was killed after he opened fire at troops who came to arrest him in the camp.
Such an assassination is seen by local observers as a serious threat to the calm declared by the Palestinian factions. It might also thwart efforts made by Abbas and the Palestinian authority to absorb the Palestinian resistance fighters into the Palestinian Authority’s departments and security forces.
At least 200 ‘wanted’ Palestinian fighters signed job applications to the Palestinian authority including a pledge not to carry out any act of violence, a step seen as a progress in solving the issue of the resistance fighters wanted by the Israeli army.
