A Palestinian woman was shot dead overnight at the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, with her family on Sunday accusing the Palestinian Authority’s security forces of killing her.
Shatha al-Sabbagh, a journalism student in her early 20s, was killed by a bullet to the head, which her family said was fired by a security forces sniper while there was no fighting going on.
The security forces of the PA, however, blamed Palestinian militants, saying she was shot during night-time clashes at the camp.
The Palestinian security forces said in a statement that the “heinous crime was committed by outlaws inside the Jenin camp”.
But her family insisted that the Palestinian security forces were responsible.
She was killed by “a sniper’s bullet from the security forces of the Palestinian Authority in a heinous crime,” the family said in a statement released on Sunday.
“As the family of martyr Shatha al-Sabbagh, we hold the Palestinian Authority and its security forces directly responsible for this crime.”
Describing the incident, the family said she was with her mother when she was shot in a neighbourhood that was “fully lit.. and there were no clashes” at the time.
“Despite this, the snipers of the security forces shot her directly,” the statement said.
Palestinian militant group Hamas also accused the PA forces of killing her.
“The cold-blooded and deliberate killing of journalist Shatha … is a criminal act that adds to the dark record of these security apparatuses, which have committed crimes of killing, arresting and mistreating our people,” Hamas said in a statement.
The Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate called for an Independent investigation to uncover the circumstances of her death.
