Fatah Lawmaker Shot in West Bank City of Jenin
Unknown assailants shot and wounded a Palestinian lawmaker in the city of Jenin overnight, he told AFP, after the city's governor was targeted in a shooting incident in early May.
Shami al-Shami, a member of the Fatah party of President Mahmoud Abbas, was hit in the thigh by two bullets, he told AFP, saying he was treated at a local hospital after the incident in the early hours of Sunday morning.
"It was clearly an attempt to kill me," he added, saying unknown gunmen had fired a volley of bullets at him as he returned to his home at around 1:30 am.
The shooting comes as fears grow about the security situation in Jenin, in the northern West Bank, where the Palestinian Authority once touted its success at restoring calm.
In early May, unknown gunmen fired at the house of governor Qadura Mussa, who subsequently died after suffering a heart attack linked to the incident.
The perpetrators were allegedly members of a family enraged by authorities' refusal to open an inquiry into the death of a relative during an arrest.
Authorities in the city have declared a crackdown on unlicensed weapons and rounded up dozens of people, prompting locals to accuse security officials of using excessive force, and detaining individuals unfairly.
In May alone, at least 70 people were arrested in Jenin, around a third of them members of the security forces or former members of militant groups.
Among those detained is Zakaria Zubaidi, a West Bank militant who laid down his arms in a 2007 amnesty and took up a new role in a local theatre.
The director of that theatre, Israeli-Palestinian Juliano Mer-Khamis, was killed last year in a murder that has yet to be solved.
Source: Agence France Presse
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