Palestinian man left quadriplegic by Israeli shooting: Ministry

A Palestinian man was paralysed from the neck down after being shot by the Israeli army on Friday in the West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said.

The man was shot through the neck, the ministry said in a statement.

Palestinian sources had earlier reported the wounding of 24-year-old Haroun Rasmi Abu Aram in the village of Al-Tuwanah, south of Hebron.

The man had been attempting to prevent the troops from “stealing an electric generator” that belonged to him, according to the Palestinian news agency WAFA.

Israeli rights group B’Tselem said Abu Aram was helping a neighbour to build a house at the time of the shooting.

Witnesses confirmed the incident was triggered when Israeli forces tried to stop Palestinians building a house in a village in southern Hebron and seized an electricity generator belonging to Abu Aram.

Israel prevents Palestinians from building houses in areas under its control in the West Bank without hard-to-obtain building permits.

Footage of an Israeli soldier shooting a Palestinian who dared to resist the confiscation of his generator. Harun abu-Aram, resident of a-Rakeez, is in a critical condition. The family was rebuilding its home, demolished by Israel in Nov. https://t.co/drWjTyhHXu

— Sarit Michaeli (@saritm0) January 1, 2021

The Israeli army told AFP news agency that a number of Palestinians had attacked soldiers who were conducting a routine operation to evacuate an “illegal building” and had fired into the air in response.

An investigation into the incident was under way, the Israeli army added.

Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967 and its settlements in the area are regarded as illegal by much of the international community.

But the settler population has grown in recent years.

There are currently some 450,000 Jewish settlers in the West Bank, living among an estimated 2.8 million Palestinians.

In 2020, Israel demolished the homes of more than 900 Palestinians in the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem, according to the Israeli rights group B’Tselem.

The Palestinians claim the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, with a capital in East Jerusalem, for a future state. They say the growing settler population in the West Bank has made it increasingly difficult to achieve independence.