Israeli forces fatally shot a Palestinian journalist on Wednesday as she was heading to her new job with a local media network in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron.
According to the Palestinian health ministry, Ghufran Harun Warasneh, 31, was shot in the torso near the al-Arroub refugee camp and died later in the hospital.
Warasneh was travelling towards the main road when two soldiers manning a military checkpoint asked her to approach them before one of them shot her, according to an unnamed eyewitness.
In a statement, the Israeli army said that “On Route 60, a knife-wielding assailant approached toward a soldier conducting regular security action. The soldiers retaliated with live ammunition.”
Israeli forces on the site reportedly prevented Palestinian Red Crescent doctors from reaching Warasneh for 20 minutes before they were able to take her to Hebron’s al-Ahli hospital.
Warasneh had started working at Dream, a small news agency, this week, and Wednesday was meant to be her third day.
A graduate of the journalism school at Hebron University, Warasneh had worked with a few local media networks before joining Dream.
Her mother told Wafa that Warasneh was previously arrested and imprisoned for three months over her coverage of a pro-Palestine rally in January and her camera equipment was destroyed.
“Ghufran left the house early to get to work on time,” Warasneh’s mother, who was not named, told Wafa.
“But it did not take long until we heard that the occupation fatally shot a woman at the entrance of the camp, but we did not know that it was my daughter until later.
“The news came to us like a shock.”
Targeting female journalists
Ghufran’s death, according to Palestinian journalist Merfat Sadiq, was “painful” and part of a recent escalation against Palestinian journalists.
“It appears that women journalists, in particular, are seen as a more vulnerable target. “We saw this two days ago when female journalists covering the flag march in Jerusalem and Nablus were attacked repeatedly,” Sadiq remarked.
“A barrage of teargas was directed towards journalist Ranin Sawaftah.
“The allegation of an attempted stabbing is irrelevant, the soldier could have arrested her or scared her. She was close to them yet she was hit in the upper body as the images showed. It was a premeditated killing,” she added.
The Palestinian foreign ministry condemned the killing as a “field execution”.
“She was en route to her work and there were no incidents there or danger to the criminals,” it said in a statement.
So far this year, Israeli forces have killed more than 50 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, including prominent journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.
On Friday, Israeli forces shot dead a 15-year-old Palestinian near Bethlehem, after confrontations erupted between al-Khader’s residents and the soldiers who stormed the town to “secure an intersection near the illegal settlement of Efrat,” according to Israeli media.
Ghonaim is the 15th Palestinian teenager to be killed by Israeli fire this year.
Two days earlier, 16-year-old Gaith Yamin was killed by Israeli soldiers as they secured the arrival of Israeli settlers at Joseph’s Tomb, on the outskirts of the West Bank city of Nablus, a site revered by Muslims and Jews and a regular flashpoint between Palestinians and Israelis.
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The Chenab Times News Desk
