BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — Thousands of Palestinians attended the funeral of 19-year-old Malik Akram Shahin on Tuesday morning, hours after he was shot dead by Israeli forces during a detention raid into Duheisha refugee camp south of Bethlehem.A Ma’an reporter said the funeral procession set off from Beit Jala governmental hospital at 10:30 a.m. for Shahin’s home in Duheisha camp where his family paid their last respects. The 19-year-old youth had four sisters.Mourners joining the funeral procession chanted slogans condemning the Israeli violations against the Palestinians.Shahin was shot in the head during a predawn detention raid into the refugee camp on Tuesday morning. Local residents said that Israeli soldiers fired live rounds, tear gas canisters, and stun grenades “indiscriminately” through the camp’s narrow alleys.
Friends of Malek Shahin, a 19 year-old Palestinian who was killed in clashes with Israeli security forces, carry his body during his funeral procession in the Dheisheh refugee camp near the West Bank town of Bethlehem on December 8, 2015. (AFP/Musa al-Shaer)
After soldiers shot Shahin, he was reportedly “left bleeding for long before he was evacuated to the public hospital in Beit Jala, where medics pronounced him dead,” locals said.An Israeli army spokesperson had no information of his death, but she said that Israeli soldiers had opened fire after Palestinians threw “pipe bombs and Molotov cocktails” at them. The left-wing Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine later said that Shahin had been one of its supporters. The group said in a statement that he fell “during fierce clashes with Israeli troops who raided the camp to detain young men affiliated to the PFLP.”
Following his death, a Bethlehem committee announced a halt to all business across the district and stores and government institutions were closed. Clashes were reported to have broken out in Tuqu village in Bethlehem after schools were closed, although no injuries were reported. At least 114 Palestinians have now been killed in just over two months of unrest across the occupied Palestinian territory.
Originally appeared at Ma’an News Agency
