Palestinian writer-revolutionary killed in gunfight with Israeli troops

Bassel al-Araj was killed after apparently trying to resist the Israeli forces that came to arrest him.

The resulting shootout lasted two hours, during which dozens of elite Israeli forces reportedly used grenade launchers, before entering the remains of Araj's home and shooting the activist at close range, according to unverified witness accounts.

Israeli forces reportedly took the 31-year-old's body from the scene.

Israeli police claimed Araj headed a group that planned attacks against Israeli targets and collected weapons for the group.

Israeli forces entered the West Bank's Ramallah area early on Monday to arrest Araj. The police published photos of two firearms it said were found on the scene.

However, Palestinian activists and solidarity groups accused Israel of assassinating him.

"[The] extrajudicial execution of Bassel al-Araj is yet another example of the ongoing use of 'arrest raids' as assassination raids against Palestinian strugglers, including the killing of Abdullah Shalaldeh in the hospital and the murder of former prisoner and struggler Muataz Washaha," said Samidoun, the Palestinian Prisoners' Solidarity Network.

Meanwhile, at least 19 West Bank residents, including two Hamas-affiliated lawmakers from Bethlehem, were detained by occupying Israeli forces in separate pre-dawn raids across the West Bank, reported Petra.

Israeli troops stormed the West Bank cities of Hebron, Bethlehem, Tulkarem, Qalqilya, Ramallah and Jenin as well as a number of neighbourhoods in occupied East Jerusalem to arrest the Palestinians targeted.

The Israeli army routinely carries out forays and arrests in Ramallah, although the city is, under the Oslo Accords, entirely under the control of the Palestinian Authority.

Trained as a pharmacist, Araj, who hailed from the village of Walaja near Bethlehem, was a writer and activist known for his views in support of armed resistance and national liberation

Who was Bassel al-Araj?

Originally trained as a pharmacist, Araj, who hailed from the village of Walaja near Bethlehem, was a writer and activist known for his views in support of armed resistance and national liberation from the Israeli occupation.

He was one of six Palestinians detained and allegedly tortured for nearly six months by the Palestinian Authority. The PA was described as an accomplice in his death by Palestinian factions on Monday, due to its security coordination with Israel. 

Following a hunger strike, the six were released, but five of them were immediately detained by Israel - while Araj went into hiding. His family's home has since come under repeated raids by Israeli forces, said local sources.

According to The New Arab's West Bank correspondent, Araj lived undercover, posing as a Palestinian-Swedish World Bank employee, living minutes away from Ramallah, where he helped organise protests.

"A young man with a heavy accent calling himself Ibrahim al-Hajj came to me on 22 January, asking to rent the house, and identifying himself as a Swedish citizen of Palestinian descent," Majida Abu Khalaf, his landlady, told The New Arab. Little did she know the man was one of the Israeli army's most wanted Palestinians.

Araj's friends gave him the nickname "Fanon", in reference to the famed revolutionary Frantz Fanon, thanks to the slain Palestinian's interest in the theory of revolution and resistance, which he preached among youths in his community and in his many writings published under a variety of pseudonyms.

Araj, who was mourned in official statements by Hamas and the Popular Front (PFLP), was not officially affiliated to any faction. He was seen as an emerging figure of a new generation of young Palestinian "freedom fighters", and as a critical threat by Israel, his friends say.

"If you want to be an intellectual, you have to be a militant intellectual, otherwise you are useless," he reportedly said in a lecture in 2015.


(Additional reporting by Naela Khalil with input from agencies)