Occupied Palestine | فلسطين

Two Workers Injured in Gaza, 11 West Bankers Arrested as Troops Raid the Freedom Theater

05.04.11 – 12:35

Gaza – PNN – Two Palestinian workers were injured when Israeli tanks fired shells at them near the northern Gaza–Israeli borders on Tuesday morning.

Palestinian medics announced that tanks shelling made it difficult to reach the two injured men to evacuate them to a hospital.

Meanwhile 11 Palestinian civilians were arrested by Israeli troops during pre-dawn invasions on Tuesday, which targeted a number of West Bank communities. Ten of those arrested were from the village of Awarta in northern west Bank. One man was arrested by Israeli soldiers after they searched his home in al-Aroup refugee camp in southern west Bank.

Arrests in the West Bank – Archive

The Awarta village has been the location of military invasions since last month’s killing of a settler family in the nearby Itamar settlement. The motivation and the attackers of Itamar remain unknown.

Also on Tuesday morning Israeli troops invaded Jenin refugee camp and raided the Freedom Theatre. Freedom Theatre Founder Juliano Mer-Khamis was shot dead near his home in Jenin on Monday afternoon. Witnesses told local media that troops stormed the theater in early hours of Tuesday morning, searched it, and took documents and photos form the site. Soldiers also searched nearby homes.

Palestinian security sources said that since last night the Israeli army has installed military checkpoints on roads leading in and out of the city and are searching Palestinian cars.

Since 2006, Khamis ran the Freedom Theatre in Jenin, a theatre and cultural centre in the Jenin Refugee Camp.

The commander of Jenin district Colonel Radi Assida told PNN that the killing is targeting the conditions of stability and security that the residents of Jenin have been enjoying for the last two years: 

”An unidentified masked man stopped Mer-Khamis’s car in the street near his residence in the refugee camp and opened fire from a close range, killing him and injuring a female Palestinian who also works in the Freedom Theatre.” Assida told PNN, “This attack is not an attack on Juliano alone, it is targeting the peace and security that has existed here for two years.”

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