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Nizar Banat: The death shaking the Palestinian leadership
Source: BBC
Nizar Banat: The death shaking the Palestinian leadership
By Yolande Knell
BBC News, Jerusalem
7 September 2021
Two men pray quietly next to the newest grave in the "martyrs'" cemetery in Hebron in the occupied West Bank. Most of those buried here were killed in confrontations with Israel.
But the family of Nizar Banat, a well-known online activist, believe he sacrificed his life for a new struggle against the Palestinians' own increasingly authoritarian leadership.
"What I saw was an assassination operation," says Hussein Banat, who was sleeping next to his cousin in the house where he was hiding after receiving death threats on 24 June.
He describes how more than a dozen Palestinian security officers broke in, and one began hitting his cousin with a crowbar.
"If their intent was to arrest him, he was fast asleep - they could have handcuffed him and taken him away without killing him," he says.
Security camera footage from the night-time raid shows Mr Banat being dragged away and shoved into a car. Within an hour, he was declared dead.
-snip-
By Yolande Knell
BBC News, Jerusalem
7 September 2021
Two men pray quietly next to the newest grave in the "martyrs'" cemetery in Hebron in the occupied West Bank. Most of those buried here were killed in confrontations with Israel.
But the family of Nizar Banat, a well-known online activist, believe he sacrificed his life for a new struggle against the Palestinians' own increasingly authoritarian leadership.
"What I saw was an assassination operation," says Hussein Banat, who was sleeping next to his cousin in the house where he was hiding after receiving death threats on 24 June.
He describes how more than a dozen Palestinian security officers broke in, and one began hitting his cousin with a crowbar.
"If their intent was to arrest him, he was fast asleep - they could have handcuffed him and taken him away without killing him," he says.
Security camera footage from the night-time raid shows Mr Banat being dragged away and shoved into a car. Within an hour, he was declared dead.
-snip-
Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-58400442
