Ramallah: Thirty-year-old Palestinian Alaa Mohammad Odeh was shot dead by Israeli forces at the Za’atarah border crossing.
Israeli forces say Odeh fired a pistol, but Odeh’s family says that the allegation is baseless. Instead, they say their son was shot in cold blood and left on the ground bleeding until he died.
Palestinian Red Crescent ambulances were also said to have been prevented from reaching the dying man. Odeh was the father of two children and owned a mobile shop in his home village of Howarnah.
He was waiting for a stock shipment from Ramallah at the checkpoint where he was killed. Israeli authorities have seized Odeh’s body and transferred it to an unknown place inside Israel and has not cooperated yet in handing over the body to the Palestinian authorities.
Observers believe Israeli forces are buying time in order to come up with a fabricated story on his death. Fierce clashes erupted in Odeh’s village between residents and Israeli occupation forces following the shooting. Israeli forces used tear gas and live ammunition on the crowd.
