UNRWA announces the death of one of its employees in the West Bank, killed in an Israeli raid

The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) announced on Friday the death of one of its employees, killed in the West Bank during a raid by the Israeli army, according to which he was shot after having “thrown explosive devices”.

The Israeli army launched a vast offensive in late August in the north of the West Bank, where armed groups fighting against Israel, which has occupied the Palestinian territory for 57 years, are particularly active.

Dozens of Palestinians, including several members of armed groups, but also civilians, adolescents and elderly people, were killed according to Palestinian sources, in this operation described as “anti-terrorist” by the Israeli army.

On Friday, UNRWA said in a statement that Sofiane Jaber Abed Jawwad had been killed in the night from Wednesday to Thursday in the Faraa refugee camp (north).

“This is the first time that an UNRWA employee has been killed in the West Bank in more than ten years,” it stressed.

According to UNRWA, Sofiane Jaber Abed Jawwad was a “roadworker”, married and the father of five children. He was buried on Friday, according to an AFP journalist present at the funeral.

On X, an Israeli army spokesman, Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, claimed that Abed Jawwad was throwing “explosive devices” and was “a threat” to soldiers operating in the Faraa area. Soldiers “opened fire in his direction (…) and he was killed.”

Damaged buildings after an Israeli army raid near Tulkarem, in the northern occupied West Bank, on September 12, 2024 © AFP – Zain JAAFAR

“The terrorist was later identified and it was discovered that he was also an employee of UNRWA,” the officer added, claiming that he was known to the security services for having been “complicit in other terrorist activities.”

The Israeli army had earlier indicated that it had “carried out a 48-hour anti-terrorist operation” in the areas of Toubas, Tamoune and Faraa, in the northern West Bank, killing “five armed terrorists” in an airstrike and a sixth in “exchanges of fire” with “a terrorist who was throwing explosive devices.”

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Israel has stepped up deadly raids in the occupied West Bank since Hamas' unprecedented attack on Israeli soil, which triggered war in the Gaza Strip on October 7, where according to UNRWA, more than 220 of its employees have been killed since the start of hostilities, including six on Wednesday.

– Funerals –

In the West Bank, at least 679 Palestinians have been killed since October 7 by gunfire from Israeli soldiers or settlers, according to data from the Palestinian Ministry of Health, and at least 24 Israelis, including soldiers, have died in Palestinian attacks or military operations, according to official Israeli data.

Funeral procession for victims of an Israeli airstrike in Toubas, in the northern occupied West Bank, on September 13, 2024 © AFP – JAAFAR ASHTIYEH

On Friday, relatives of Palestinians killed by an airstrike in Toubas held funerals, after the withdrawal of Israeli forces following a raid in the area, AFP noted.

The Israeli army said on Wednesday that it was conducting “anti-terrorist operations in the regions of Toubas and Tamoune” and that one of its planes had “struck a terrorist cell” in the Toubas area.

The official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that the army had withdrawn on Thursday evening, allowing so the funeral arrangements.

The four men buried in Toubas on Friday were killed by an airstrike at dawn on Wednesday, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent. A fifth man killed by the same strike was buried Friday in Tamoune, also in the northern West Bank.

Palestinian activists attend the funeral of victims of an Israeli airstrike in Toubas, in the northern occupied West Bank, on September 13, 2024 © AFP – JAAFAR ASHTIYEH

On Friday morning, hundreds of people marched through the streets of Toubas alongside the four bodies stored on stretchers and wrapped in white shrouds. Some waved the green flag of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, and gunshots punctuated the songs of mourners.

“I woke up in the morning to the sound of an explosion,” Ahmed Sawafta, the father of one of the dead men, told AFP, describing Wednesday's strike. “My brothers came and told me that Yassine had been martyred,” he added, referring to his son.

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