Two Al Quds Brigades Members Assassinated and Long-Term Detainee Released - Bethlehem

I was in bed when I heard the gun fire last night. It went on for at least an hour.
Unfortunately, I was trying to heal some of my scars while this was going on. I could not find out what was happening in the town, then. Well, I did not consider it as an option, really. Was thinking to myself, ‘what if it is a new Israeli invasion on Bethlehem?’, ‘what if I am going to be stuck at home for weeks under curfew, with gun fire and tanks roaring in the background’, ’what if… what if it is someone I know is shot’. I did not want to know.

Today, checking the news - on Ma’an News Agency and IMEMC - I learned that two members of Al Quds Brigades from Obeideyeh, East of Bethlehem City, were killed. One source said that the two parties were exchanging fire before the two assassinated were trapped in a cave. The other got a phone call from the spokesperson of Al Quds Brigade, who informed them that there has been two dozens Israeli military vehicles invading the town under the cover of an war-plane. Commonly, the two sources said that the two were killed by a rocket while in the cave.
“The two were released from an Israeli jail few months ago and soon they were claimed wanted by the Israeli military. An Israeli military spokesperson claimed that the two are involved in planning a shoot out at an Israeli military checkpoint near the West Bank village of Sheikh Sa’ad wounding three Israeli soldiers.” (IMEMC)
The person who carried the act on the checkpoint was killed by Israeli soldiers on the spot, Ma’an reported.

Now, why would those two Palestinian fighters from Bethlehem be released from jail the first place if the Israeli government thought they might still be a cause of ‘terror’.

Also, why would the IOF invade the town to kill them instead of actually detain them while they were trying to pass an Israeli checkpoint, granted that there are at least two Israeli checkpoints placed on Palestinian lands in every single Palestinian towns’ boundaries. Besides, the IOF violated, again, an international law by entering the town. To make my point clearer; soldiers of a “civilised and democratic” state crossing the borders to ‘area A’ - lands administered fully by the Palestinian Authority, scare the s**t out of residents of Bethlehem, hunt down and then kill brutally two Palestinians in their home town, is a bit too much to fathom, don’t you think?

The latest thing I read from Bethlehem news was concerning the release of a long-term administrative detainee from Al Nagav Israeli prison. Majdi al Shrouf served five years in Israeli prisons making him the second to serve the longest period of distractive detention in an Israeli prison.

Let us hope that we never hear the news of his assassination by Israeli soldiers next.


Ma'an News - IMEMC - Administrative Detention; Definition