The Israel Defense Forces said on Friday that it regrets the killing of a Palestinian man who was shot during a raid on a Hamas cell in the West Bank city of Hebron.
Amr Qawasme, a 65-year-old Hebron resident, was killed early Friday during an IDF raid during which six Hamas members were re-arrested after being released by the Palestinian Authority the previous day. Medical sources said Qawasme, who was unarmed at the time, was brought dead to hospital with several bullet wounds to the upper part of his body. They said the man had been shot in a building the soldiers had raided to arrest one of the Hamas members.
The IDF confirmed that the man was "present in one of the terrorist's home." They further clarified that during the raid, they arrested Wael Mahmoud Said Bitar, a senior member of the Hamas armed infrastructure in the Hebron Region.
"Bitar was the assistant of Shehab Natshe, who planned the suicide bombing in Dimona of 2008, in which an Israeli woman was killed and ten civilians were injured," the IDF statement said. "After Natshe was killed, Bitar planned several suicide attacks that were eventually thwarted."