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Teen footballer dies
A 17-year-old Palestinian footballer, Fadi Hamdallah al-Nassan, died on Saturday after being shot during an attack by Israeli settlers on the occupied West Bank, according to officials and relatives.
“An Palestinian teenager who played for the national youth football team died on Saturday, several days after being wounded during an attack by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, according to his family and officials”
Dozens of mourners dressed in black carried his body from the Palestine Medical Complex in Ramallah to his village for burial, after the Palestine Football Association accused Israeli forces of shooting him on July 11.
The Palestine Football Association said he was reportedly shot in the thigh, his leg was amputated, and he later died from his injuries, while TRT World reported the young player was a player for Al-Mughayyir Club and a member of the Palestinian national youth team.
His father, Hamdallah Al-Nassan, told AFP, "He loved football," and "When the settlers attacked, he heard the screams of the girls and women," before saying, "He went to the scene of the attack and was killed."
UN-linked violence tally
The death drew attention to escalating violence carried out by Israeli settlers and soldiers against Palestinian communities across the West Bank, a territory Israel has occupied since 1967, where settlement building has expanded despite being illegal under international law.
Al Jazeera said rights groups and the United Nations have described Israel’s actions in the West Bank as a system of apartheid, while TRT World cited the United Nations reporting a sharp increase in brutal attacks by illegal Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank since October 2023.
TRT World reported that Israeli soldiers or illegal settlers have killed at least 1,088 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank since October 2023, according to an AFP tally based on Palestinian health ministry data.
In contrast, A News reported that official Israeli figures show at least 46 Israelis, both soldiers and civilians, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during Israeli military operations in the West Bank since the start of the Gaza war.
Broader West Bank attacks
Beyond the footballer’s death, Al Jazeera reported that Israeli settlers and forces set fire to Palestinian property in two separate attacks in the occupied West Bank, destroying olive trees near Ramallah and a family home near Nablus.
Al Jazeera said the attacks came the same day Israeli forces raided homes in towns near Jenin, and it cited Wafa reporting that in Deir Qaddis, west of Ramallah, Israeli soldiers fired live rounds and tear gas at Palestinian farmers working their land, starting fires that tore through olive groves.
Al Jazeera also reported that in the town of Tal near Nablus, a group of settlers set fire to a Palestinian family’s home, destroying it completely, and that Israeli forces raided homes in Yabad and Mithlon near Jenin.
With the Palestinian Football Association saying in an Al Jazeera report that "With Fadi’s departure, the number of martyrs from the Palestinian sports movement since October 7, 2023, rises to 1,013," the sources tie the funeral procession to a wider pattern of violence affecting Palestinian communities across the West Bank.
