From Besieged Shuafat Refugee Camp

Reporting From Besieged Shuafat Refugee Camp

by TRNN

Following kidnapping and killing of 16 year-old Mohamed Abu Khdeir from Shuafat refugee camp, vigilante and army violence against Palestinians on the rise.

Abu Khdeir was kidnapped from the Shuafat refugee camp a day after the funeral of three Israeli teenagers whose bodies were found south of Hebron. The teenagers' kidnapping, allegedly by members of the extremist Qawasmeh clan loosely associated with the Hamas Party, sparked the biggest operation the Israeli army led in the West Bank in a decade.

All Palestinian cities and most villages were invaded, thousands of homes were searched and many destroyed, and more than 500 people arrested, not one of whom charged with the kidnapping. In the process six Palestinians were killed and another three elderly people died in various incidents. On Friday night, The Real News' Lia Tarachansky entered the besieged Shuafat refugee camp, where electricity has been shut and protests rage since Wednesday to speak to the youth protesting about the rise in vigilante and army violence this week, as many suspect the beginning of the Third Intifadah.

Lia Tarachansky is an Israeli-Russian journalist with The Real News Network reporting on Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. Born in the Soviet Union, Tarachansky grew up in a settlement in the occupied West Bank. She is the director of On the Side of the Road, a documentary on Israel's biggest taboo - the events of 1948 when the state was created. Tarachansky previously worked as a Newsroom Producer in The Real News' Washington D.C. and Toronto Headquarters, and her work appeared on BBC, Al Jazeera, USA Today, Canadian Dimension Magazine and others.