“The Zionist regime’s assassination of Ammar Mefleh hurt the feelings of the entire Palestinian nation and all freedom-loving people worldwide. This crime will not go unanswered,” senior Hamas official Ismail Radwan said on Saturday evening.
He decried the killing in the town of Huwara as an ugly and heinous crime committed before the eyes of the international community, terming the street execution as a war crime and a crime against humanity.
“The crime committed by the occupying Israeli regime against defenseless and unarmed Mefleh is a crime against humanity, which will not go unpunished,” Radwan said.
The senior Hamas member emphasized that the Tel Aviv regime will seriously regret perpetration of the crime as Palestinian resistance fighters will not settle for any punishment less than exacting revenge on Mefleh’s murderer.
“Therefore, we call upon all resistance fighters to join forces in order to eliminate the criminal responsible for the execution. We ask all Palestinian combatants to go after him because he has committed an appalling crime,” Radwan noted.
He went on to stress that Israeli officials must know that they have to pay a heavy price for their acts of aggression against the Palestinian nation and the crime in Huwara.
“We emphasize that the occupying Zionist regime is trying to divert world public attention from the horrendous crime in the West Bank. The crime will, however, be answered appropriately either from the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, al-Quds or the 1948 Israeli-occupied territories. We ask all Palestinians to respond to Mefleh’s assassination,” Radwan said.
The high-profile Hamas figure stated that the blood of Palestinian martyrs will not go in vain, and will further motivate Palestinian fighters to press ahead with their struggle and resistance against the occupying regime.
Video footage widely circulated on social media showed an Israeli soldier putting 22-year-old Mefleh in a headlock on the street in the town of Huwara on Friday, as two other men try to wrestle him away.
The man then appears to strike the Israeli soldier, before the trooper pulls out a handgun and shoots him several times at point-blank.
Israeli forces present at the scene prevented residents and ambulances from providing aid to the injured Palestinian youth, provoking clashes with locals.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health said Mefleh died of his critical wounds.
Since the start of 2022, Israeli troops have killed more than 200 Palestinians, including more than 50 children, in the occupied West Bank and East al-Quds as well as the besieged Gaza Strip.
According to the United Nations, the number of Palestinians killed by Israel in the occupied West Bank this year is the highest in 16 years.
Local and international rights groups have condemned Israel’s excessive use of force and “shoot-to-kill policy” against Palestinians.
Meanwhile, Hazem Qassem, a Hamas spokesman, has censured the latest Israeli airstrikes against the besieged Gaza Strip, stating that the terrorism and Nazi policies being pursued by Israeli authorities will never manage to stifle the Palestinian nation’s resistance campaign against the regime.
“We (Palestinian fighters) will always support the Palestinian nation’s struggle no matter where it would be. The resistance groups’ confrontation and direct response to the Israeli acts of aggression against the Gaza Strip showed that the combatants will never allow the occupiers to change existing equations,” Qassem said.
“We will continue to defend the Palestinian nation wherever necessary,” the Hamas spokesman pointed out.
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