A young woman was killed overnight from Saturday to Sunday in the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, her family accusing the Palestinian Authority, which blames the armed groups it has been facing for several weeks.
Shatha Sabbagh, a journalism student in her twenties very active on social networks, died of a gunshot to the head.
Palestinian Authority security forces on Sunday condemned “in the strongest possible terms the heinous crime committed by the outlaws.”
The young woman’s family, however, believes that the police are “directly responsible”.
“Shatha Sabbagh was killed by the fire of a sniper from the security forces” of the Palestinian Authority, her relatives said in a statement, specifying that she was then alongside her mother “in a well-lit neighborhood, far from any combat.
The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas also points the finger at its rivals in the Palestinian Authority and denounces “a criminal act which adds to the dark record of the security apparatus”.
The Palestinian Journalists’ Union called for the formation of an independent commission of inquiry to shed light on the circumstances of the incident.
Usually rare, inter-Palestinian clashes have intensified since the police arrest of several activists in the Jenin region.
They have now caused the death, since December 5, of 11 people, including five members of the security forces and six civilians.
The city and refugee camp of Jenin are strongholds of armed factions that consider themselves more effective in fighting Israel than the Palestinian Authority.
The latter, led by President Mahmoud Abbas, holds partial administrative authority in the West Bank, territory occupied by Israel since 1967.
These clashes come on top of an increase in violence in the West Bank linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since the start of the war in the Gaza Strip, triggered by the unprecedented attack by Hamas on Israeli territory on October 7, 2023.
