An American-Palestinian man, Omar Assad, 78, died while being assaulted by Israeli police on the 12th of January, in the Palestinian village of Jiljilya outside of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.
Assad’s nephew told local media that his uncle was driving home early in the morning on Wednesday when Israeli soldiers stopped his uncle: “soldiers handcuffed him and blindfolded him, and dragged him on the ground”, and “when they saw that he died, they left.”
Assad’s 60-year old cousin said that the soldiers held Assad for more than an hour before eventually leaving him dead on the ground with plastic handcuffs (zip ties) around his hands and feet.
#IsraeliCrimes continue to target the young & old: 80-year-old #Palestinian Omar As’ad was found blindfolded, handcuffed, and dead in an abandoned building north of #Ramallah. He was detained and assaulted by Israeli occupation forces during an overnight raid in Jiljilya village. pic.twitter.com/Ck7ifhT7mL
— PLO Department of Public Diplomacy & Policy (@PalestinePDP) January 12, 2022
According to local Palestinian representatives, the Israeli army had been conducting nighttime security operations targeting Palestinian youth that day. Neighbors in the area heard altercations between the soldiers and Palestinians that night, and some even witnessed the event that resulted in Assad’s death.
Such overnight raids by Israeli soldiers into occupied Palestine is extremely common. During these raids, Palestinians are exposed to live ammunition rounds, arrests, assaults, injury and even death. Last year the Israeli army conducted over 3,000 of these operations.
Local Palestinian official Found Qattoum is demanding an international investigation, and described Assad’s death as “a field execution and a great crime that should not go unnoticed.”
Wisconsin lawmakers Tammy Baldwin and Representative Gwen Moore sent a letter to US Secretary of State Antony Blinkin urging the Biden administration to investigation how an American citizen who lived in Milwaukee for decades died in the hands of Israeli soldiers, and whether the weapons used against Assad were obtained with American aid.
“As a Palestinian American, Mr. Assad deserves the full protections afforded US citizens living abroad and his family deserves answers,” Baldwin and Moore wrote.
