Ramallah: Bayan Al Tabib is sticking by his six-year-old son’s bed side. Yousuf Al Tabib was walking with his elder brother on the Route 55 highway to join their family who was tending to their olive farm when a speeding silver vehicle with a yellow registration plate carried out a drive by shooting, critically injuring the little boy.
Thaer, Yousuf’s elder brother and only witness to the crime, was subsequently apprehended by Israeli occupation forces. The arrest of the 19-year-old law student is a pressure tactic to press the Al Tabib family to retract their eye witness accounts, says the family.
Al Tabib said Israeli authorities have offered his family financial compensation in exchange for retracting their accusations against the Jewish terrorist who carried out the shooting. A huge military force raided his house in Ezbat Al Tabib between Nablus and Qalqilia to find any evidence to prove the shooting was carried out by a family member by mistake.
“The Israelis are desperate to wash their hands of any responsibility for this crime,” Bayan said. Yousuf is currently in stable condition after having undergone two operations.
Al Tabib said he plans to sue the Israeli occupation forces and security service for arresting his elder son without just cause.
Meanwhile, tensions remained high on Sunday as a Palestinian stabbed and wounded an Israeli teenager in Occupied Jerusalem on Sunday and was then shot dead by police, authorities said, just hours after a similar assault killed two people in the city.
Violence has risen in occupied East Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank in recent weeks. Though not at the levels of previous Palestinian uprisings, or “Intifadas,” it has triggered concerns of a wider escalation.
The attack happened less than 12 hours after a Palestinian stabbed two Israelis to death nearby in Occupied Jerusalem’s walled Old City, and wounded at least two others. The assailant, later claimed by Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad as a member, was shot dead by police.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was due to convene an emergency meeting with security officials later on Sunday, his office said, and a security cabinet meeting on Monday.
On Thursday, an Israeli couple was shot dead while their four children were in the car in a suspected Palestinian drive-by attack near a West Bank Jewish colony.
Then tension comess over unprecedented Israeli restrictions on Al Haram Al Sharif, banned most Palestinians from worshipping at their own holy site. Jewish colonists are allowed access with Israeli police protection, angering Palestinians who say the world is doing nothing in the face of the grave injustice. On top of the ban on Al Haram Al Sharif, Israeli authorities banned Palestinians from the entire old city of Occupied Jerusalem for at least two days, in a drastic collective punishment.
The restrictions will be in place for two days, with only Israelis, tourists, residents of the area, business owners and students allowed, police said.Palestinians say that the restrictions are a part of a grand Israeli plan to judaise the holy city which they want as the capital of their future state. They say the Israeli regime is trying to create facts on the ground to erase Palestinian and Muslim identity from Occupied Jerusalem.-With inputs from Reuters
