The United Nations’ Middle East envoy said Saturday he was “horrified” by the killing of a Palestinian knifeman who security forces said wounded Israeli police in the West Bank.
Border police tried to break into the car of an Israeli couple in the town of Huwara, near Ammar Mifleh, near Nablus on Friday afternoon. While trying to break down the locked door, one of the insiders – an off-duty IDF officer – shot and wounded Miflen with a pistol.
Mifle then ran up to a nearby Border Police officer and stabbed him in the face, slightly injuring him.
Graph personnel Footage posted on social media showed another Border Police officer trying to grab Miflen after the stabbing, while two other Palestinians tried to free him.
A second officer managed to get Mifflin away from them with a decapitation, but he briefly freed himself from his grasp and tried to grab the officer’s automatic weapon. The officer then let the gun fall to the ground while removing a pistol from its holster and fired four shots, killing him.
“He was horrified that today a Palestinian named Ammar Mifle was killed in a shootout with an Israeli soldier near Huwara.[ccupied] West Bank,” UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Tor Vennesland said on Twitter.
🇧🇷 إن دم عمار مفلح إلى إلى وقود ثورة تحرق “Israel”#குர்கு_சுர்தை pic.twitter.com/n3l1AB6Lwm
— يوسف ابوزكي (@YAbwzky) December 3, 2022
“I offer my deepest condolences to his bereaved family. Such incidents should be fully and promptly investigated and the culprits should be brought to justice.”
Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon condemned Wennesland’s statement, calling it “a complete distortion of reality.”
Tor Vennesland, UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, briefs the Security Council via video conference on the situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian issue, on January 26, 2021. (Daniela Penkova/UNSCO/File)
“This incident is a terrorist attack, an Israeli police officer was stabbed in the face, another police officer’s life was threatened, and he shot the attacker dead,” Nahshon said on Twitter.
“This is NOT a ‘fight’ – this is a terrorist attack!” he added.
Defense Minister Benny Gantz also said he “strongly condemns” Wennesland’s comments.
“I want to praise the police who neutralized the terrorist yesterday. I strongly condemn the attempts to present the incident in a false and manipulative manner and the statement of the UN representative for the Middle East against the United States. [officer]acting with determination and professionalism,” Gantz said on Twitter.
Border Police said the officer with the stab wounds was later evacuated for medical treatment as it was the officer who subdued the assailant.
On December 2, 2022, a police officer was injured after a knife attack in the northern West Bank town of Hawara. (Israel Police)
Huwara is a frequent flashpoint, and the highway through the city is the main route for displaced people traveling north to the West Bank.
Mifle was the ninth Palestinian killed in violence in the West Bank in less than four days.
A knife used by an alleged Palestinian attacker in the West Bank town of Huwara on December 2, 2022 (Israel Police)
Two members of a Palestinian terrorist group were killed in violent clashes with Israeli soldiers during a raid near the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank that was held until Thursday morning. Another Palestinian was killed in clashes with Israeli soldiers in the northern West Bank city of Yabed on Wednesday afternoon. Four Palestinians were killed in clashes with the Israeli army in the West Bank on Tuesday, and one Palestinian was killed in a car attack that seriously injured a soldier later that day.
Tensions have been high in the West Bank for the past year, with the Israeli military launching a major counter-terrorist offensive, mainly in the northern part of the Jordan River, to deal with a series of Palestinian attacks that killed 31 people in Israel and the West Bank. since the beginning of the year.
The operation netted more than 2,500 arrests in overnight raids, but left more than 150 Palestinians dead, many – but not all – of them carrying out attacks or in clashes with security forces.
