Sufyan Jaber Abed Jawwad, who worked as a sanitation worker in El Far\u2019a Camp in the West Bank, \u201cwas shot and killed on the roof of his home by a sniper during an overnight Israeli military operation in the early morning of September 12,\u201d the United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) said in a statement. <\/p>\n
But the Israeli military has accused Jawwad and the others killed of being \u201cterrorists.\u201d <\/p>\n
Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), confirmed Friday that Jawwad was killed in an operation in the West Bank\u2019s Far\u2019a area and alleged that he was \u201churling explosive devices that posed a threat to the forces operating in the area.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cIDF troops opened fire toward him to remove said threat, and he was killed,\u201d Shoshani said. He added that Jawwad was \u201cknown to Israeli security forces and he had been complicit in additional terrorist activities.\u201d <\/p>\n
The IDF said in an earlier statement on Friday that its troops had located and dismantled \u201ca vehicle rigged with explosives, explosives laboratories, operational communications rooms, and weapons\u201d during the operation that killed Jawwad. <\/p>\n
Jawwad \u2013 the first UNRWA staffer to be killed in the West Bank in more than 10 years \u2013 is survived by his wife and five children, according to UNRWA. <\/p>\n
In Gaza, at least 220 staff have been killed since October 7, UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said in a post on X on Wednesday. <\/p>\n
Jordan\u2019s Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned Jawwad\u2019s killing in a statement on Friday, calling it \u201ca heinous crime.\u201d <\/p>\n
The IDF has voiced distrust of some UNRWA staffers before. In January, it accused several UNRWA members in Gaza of direct involvement in the Hamas-led October 7 terror attack on Israel. A UN investigation in August found that nine UNRWA employees \u201cmay have\u201d been involved in the October 7 attack and no longer work at the agency. <\/p>\n
The other people killed in the Israeli operation over the past 48 hours were killed in the areas of Tulkarem, Nur Shams and Tubas, according to the IDF. <\/p>\n
Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of Islamic Jihad, said the five killed in Tubas were members of the Tubas Battalion in the West Bank who were \u201cpreparing ambushes and explosive devices against\u201d Israeli forces. <\/p>\n
The death comes amid increasing Israeli military action in the West Bank. <\/p>\n
Recent Israeli operations have had a heavy impact on humanitarian resources in the area, leaving the refugee camps of El Far\u2019a, Tulkarem, Nur Shams and Jenin \u201cespecially affected\u201d and destroying basic infrastructure including water and electricity, UNWRA said. <\/p>\n
The agency said it had been forced to suspend its services to refugees in the area because of the \u201cunacceptable risk\u201d posed to both staffers and aid recipients by Israeli and Palestinian groups, including the danger posed by \u201cimprovised explosive devices by Palestinian armed actors.\u201d <\/p>\n
Earlier this week, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called for \u201cfundamental changes\u201d to the way Israeli forces operate in the occupied West Bank after the killing of American activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi at a protest last week. <\/p>\n
The sharply worded rebuke came after the IDF said on Tuesday that it was \u201chighly likely\u201d that Eygi was \u201chit indirectly and unintentionally by IDF fire.\u201d <\/p>\n
Nearly 700 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since October, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah and the UN. The figures do not distinguish between militants and civilians. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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Sufyan Jaber Abed Jawwad, who worked as a sanitation worker in El Far\u2019a Camp in the West Bank, \u201cwas shot and killed on the roof of his home by a sniper during an overnight Israeli military operation in the early morning of September 12,\u201d the United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) said in a <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7635,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-7634","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7634\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}