Israeli occupation forces killed a young Palestinian man outside the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in the early hours of Saturday, the official news agency WAFA reported.
The man, identified as Mohammad Khaled al-Osaibi, 26, hailed from the town of Houra in the Naqab desert.
Israeli forces claimed that al-Osaibi, who graduated from a medical school in Romania and recently passed an exam to practice medicine in Israel, attempted to snatch a weapon from an Israeli officer when he was shot and killed.
However, local sources and eyewitnesses speaking to The New Arab’s Arabic-language sister site Al-Araby Al-Jadeed denied the Israeli police’s claims that the slain man had grabbed the weapon.
The sources said that the man was shot outside the Chain Gate (Bab Al-Silsila) after he intervened as Israeli police tried to arrest a girl within the mosque compound.
Israeli occupation forces shot a Palestinian man with at least 20 bullets while trying to save a woman from being attacked by the police forces at Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied Jerusalem, according to eyewitnesses. pic.twitter.com/3pyVvh7nTe
— PALESTINE ONLINE 🇵🇸 (@OnlinePalEng) March 31, 2023
The man was scuffling with the officers when he was shot, the sources said.
After the shooting, large numbers of Israeli soldiers to the mosque — the third-holiest site in Islam — and besieged part of it, Al-Araby Al-Jadeed reported.
Israeli forces also closed off entry and exit to the Old City, where they assaulted shopkeepers and stall owners.
The incident came during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, when thousands of Palestinians head to the compound for prayers — particularly on Fridays, the holy day of the week in Islam.
More than 90 Palestinians in have been killed by Israeli forces in East Jerusalem and the West Bank since the start of the year.
(PC, The New Arab)
