http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/421016.htmlLast Friday, April 23, Israel Defense Forces soldiers killed Dr. Yasser Abu Laimun, 32, a resident of the village of Taluza, north of Nablus in the West Bank, and a lecturer in hospital management at the Arab-American University in Jenin.
Military sources told Haaretz that the purpose of the operation was not a "preemption." Since April 2002, "there are no preemptions in Judea and Samaria" (meaning deliberate liquidations of wanted individuals), "and there are no operations whose primary purpose is to liquidate or kill an unarmed person." In contrast to the Gaza Strip, the IDF can today get to any place in the West Bank at any time in order to capture wanted individuals. However, in the case of a Palestinian who is openly armed, the basic assumption is that he intends to use the weapon, thus placing the soldiers' lives in mortal danger. Therefore, armed individuals are shot without the soldiers implementing the arrest procedure.
According to the military sources, an IDF unit was in an open, hilly area, filled with pits and overgrown with thick brush, outside Taluza, last Friday. The goal was to arrest two Hamas activists, A'sam Fuka and Imad Jinajara (who, according to the army, are responsible for attacks against soldiers and civilians in the northern West Bank) - certainly not the university lecturer. An undercover force identified two armed men and opened fire immediately. One was wounded, but the two "disappeared from the sight of the force" (the wounded man was Fuka, who was later caught.) At this stage, the force released its attack dog, which is trained in seizing wanted individuals (by means of signs the army prefers not to divulge).
A few seconds later, the soldiers saw that the dog had attacked a man who was running, and they assumed this was one of the two wanted men. They shot and killed him. A few hours later, the sources said, a makeshift weapon was found in the bushes at the site. The IDF is hoping Fuka's interrogation will shed light on what now has no explanation: What Yasser Abu Laimun was doing in an open field and why he was running.
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