Israeli security forces conduct an operation in the occupied West Bank city of Nablus on December 2. AFP
Israeli security forces conduct an operation in the occupied West Bank city of Nablus on December 2. AFP
Israeli security forces conduct an operation in the occupied West Bank city of Nablus on December 2. AFP
Israeli security forces conduct an operation in the occupied West Bank city of Nablus on December 2. AFP

Palestinian youth shot dead in scuffle with Israeli police


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  • Arabic

An Israeli border police officer fatally shot dead a Palestinian alleged attacker in the occupied West Bank on Friday after they wrestled over a weapon, in an incident captured on video that was widely shared online.

The killing in the town of Huwara sparked clashes between residents and Israeli forces that left one Palestinian injured and dozens suffering suffocation from tear gas, the Palestinian Wafa news agency reported.

Rising Israeli-Palestinian tensions have made 2022 the deadliest year in the long-running conflict since 2006. Further escalation is expected, as the most right-wing and religious government in Israel’s history is poised to be installed in coming days or weeks, with former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu returning to power.

Israeli police said a Palestinian man carrying a knife tried to break into the car of an Israeli couple on a busy road in Huwara, south of the West Bank city of Nablus.

The driver, who was an Israeli soldier on leave, shot and wounded the man, who then approached border police officers on patrol nearby and stabbed one in the face, police said.

Amateur video footage shows the commander of the unit putting the man in a choke hold as two other Palestinians try to pull him away. The video shows the Palestinian man grabbing the officer’s assault rifle which then drops to the ground. The officer pulls a pistol from a holster and fires four shots. The young man falls to the ground and is later pronounced dead.

Wafa said Israeli forces prevented residents and ambulances from helping the man, identified as Ammar Mefleh, 22, from the village of Osrin to the south of Nablus.

More than 140 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli-Palestinian fighting this year. The Israeli army says most of the Palestinians killed have been militants. But stone-throwing youths protesting against Israeli army incursions and others not involved in confrontations have also been killed.

Friday’s violence came against the backdrop of months of Israeli arrest raids in the West Bank, prompted by a spate of Palestinian attacks against Israelis in the spring that killed 19 people. The military says the raids are meant to dismantle militant networks and thwart future attacks, but the Palestinians say they entrench Israel’s open-ended occupation, now in its 56th year. A recent wave of Palestinian attacks against Israeli targets killed an additional nine people.

Earlier on Friday, dozens of Israeli peace activists toured Hebron, the West Bank’s largest city, in a show of solidarity with Palestinians, amid chants of “shame, shame” from ultra-nationalist hecklers.

The encounter came a month after the strong showing of far-right factions in parliamentary elections and reflected the widening rift among Israelis over the nature of their society and the fate of the occupied territories.

In coalition agreements, Mr Netanyahu has already handed key authorities in the West Bank to ultra-nationalist faction leaders, including former fringe figure Itamar Ben-Gvir, known for his anti-Arab rhetoric. The new roles include oversight of Israeli settlement construction and the paramilitary border police, often deployed in Palestinian population centres.

At the same time, peace activists and pro-Palestinian rights groups have come under attack in recent years from right-wing politicians branding them traitors.

The immediate trigger for Friday’s tour was an incident in Hebron in which a soldier pushed a man to the ground and punched him in the face after a tense standoff with a small group of peace activists. Another soldier is heard telling the activists: “Ben-Gvir is going to sort things out in this place. That’s it, you guys have lost.”

The soldier uttering the taunts was initially sentenced to 10 days in military jail, but the army then reduced the sentence to six days.

As incoming national security minister, Mr Ben-Gvir will have control over the border police whose troops are often deployed alongside regular soldiers in the West Bank.

As about 200 peace activists arrived in the centre of Hebron on Friday, they were greeted by a group of protesters holding a banner reading: “The people of Israel demand: expel the anarchists from Hebron.” One man shouting through a bullhorn yelled, “shame, shame” as the visitors listened to tour guides in a car park, separated from the right-wing protesters by security forces.

Friday’s visit was part of the regular offerings of anti-occupation groups, but the turnout was larger than usual because of the election results and last week’s incident in Hebron, said Ori Givati, a spokesman for Breaking the Silence, one of the groups organising the trip.

He said activists were worried — but also determined to continue their work, including tours to West Bank hot spots like Hebron, where dozens of heavily guarded settlers live in a city of tens of thousands of Palestinians.

“There is definitely fear for the safety, first and foremost for Palestinians under this occupation that are now going to be under a government that promotes hate and racism more than ever toward them, and toward our organization and other organizations and activists that are now in a reality where their activity here is delegitimized, also more than ever,” Mr Givati said.

Those chanting slogans against the peace activists portrayed themselves as defenders of Israeli settlements and soldiers. Matan Gerafi of the right-wing Im Tirtzu group alleged the activists aimed to discredit soldiers and branded them “anarchists”.

Palestinians were largely out of sight as the Israeli groups faced off.

Issa Amro, a Palestinian activist in Hebron, said he believed the hardline ideology of Mr Ben-Gvir and others would spread further in Israeli society. “The settlers here are celebrating the election of their fascist representatives in the government,” he said. “What happens in Hebron will end in Tel Aviv.”

— With reporting from Reuters

Winners

Best Men's Player of the Year: Kylian Mbappe (PSG)

Maradona Award for Best Goal Scorer of the Year: Robert Lewandowski (Bayern Munich)

TikTok Fans’ Player of the Year: Robert Lewandowski

Top Goal Scorer of All Time: Cristiano Ronaldo (Manchester United)

Best Women's Player of the Year: Alexia Putellas (Barcelona)

Best Men's Club of the Year: Chelsea

Best Women's Club of the Year: Barcelona

Best Defender of the Year: Leonardo Bonucci (Juventus/Italy)

Best Goalkeeper of the Year: Gianluigi Donnarumma (PSG/Italy)

Best Coach of the Year: Roberto Mancini (Italy)

Best National Team of the Year: Italy 

Best Agent of the Year: Federico Pastorello

Best Sporting Director of the Year: Txiki Begiristain (Manchester City)

Player Career Award: Ronaldinho

Pharaoh's curse

British aristocrat Lord Carnarvon, who funded the expedition to find the Tutankhamun tomb, died in a Cairo hotel four months after the crypt was opened.
He had been in poor health for many years after a car crash, and a mosquito bite made worse by a shaving cut led to blood poisoning and pneumonia.
Reports at the time said Lord Carnarvon suffered from “pain as the inflammation affected the nasal passages and eyes”.
Decades later, scientists contended he had died of aspergillosis after inhaling spores of the fungus aspergillus in the tomb, which can lie dormant for months. The fact several others who entered were also found dead withiin a short time led to the myth of the curse.

Company profile

Name: Dukkantek 

Started: January 2021 

Founders: Sanad Yaghi, Ali Al Sayegh and Shadi Joulani 

Based: UAE 

Number of employees: 140 

Sector: B2B Vertical SaaS(software as a service) 

Investment: $5.2 million 

Funding stage: Seed round 

Investors: Global Founders Capital, Colle Capital Partners, Wamda Capital, Plug and Play, Comma Capital, Nowais Capital, Annex Investments and AMK Investment Office  

THE%C2%A0SPECS
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BIGGEST CYBER SECURITY INCIDENTS IN RECENT TIMES

SolarWinds supply chain attack: Came to light in December 2020 but had taken root for several months, compromising major tech companies, governments and its entities

Microsoft Exchange server exploitation: March 2021; attackers used a vulnerability to steal emails

Kaseya attack: July 2021; ransomware hit perpetrated REvil, resulting in severe downtime for more than 1,000 companies

Log4j breach: December 2021; attackers exploited the Java-written code to inflitrate businesses and governments

The low down

Producers: Uniglobe Entertainment & Vision Films

Director: Namrata Singh Gujral

Cast: Rajkummar Rao, Nargis Fakhri, Bo Derek, Candy Clark

Rating: 2/5

World ranking (at month’s end)
Jan - 257
Feb - 198
Mar - 159
Apr - 161
May - 159
Jun – 162
Currently: 88

Year-end rank since turning pro
2016 - 279
2015 - 185
2014 - 143
2013 - 63
2012 - 384
2011 - 883

Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
  • Priority access to new homes from participating developers
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The years Ramadan fell in May

1987

1954

1921

1888

Tearful appearance

Chancellor Rachel Reeves set markets on edge as she appeared visibly distraught in parliament on Wednesday. 

Legislative setbacks for the government have blown a new hole in the budgetary calculations at a time when the deficit is stubbornly large and the economy is struggling to grow. 

She appeared with Keir Starmer on Thursday and the pair embraced, but he had failed to give her his backing as she cried a day earlier.

A spokesman said her upset demeanour was due to a personal matter.

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The specs
Engine: 4.0-litre flat-six
Power: 510hp at 9,000rpm
Torque: 450Nm at 6,100rpm
Transmission: 7-speed PDK auto or 6-speed manual
Fuel economy, combined: 13.8L/100km
On sale: Available to order now
Price: From Dh801,800
THE SPECS

      

 

Engine: 1.5-litre

 

Transmission: 6-speed automatic

 

Power: 110 horsepower 

 

Torque: 147Nm 

 

Price: From Dh59,700 

 

On sale: now  

 
The specs
  • Engine: 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8
  • Power: 640hp
  • Torque: 760nm
  • On sale: 2026
  • Price: Not announced yet
Porsche Taycan Turbo specs

Engine: Two permanent-magnet synchronous AC motors

Transmission: two-speed

Power: 671hp

Torque: 1050Nm

Range: 450km

Price: Dh601,800

On sale: now

The Old Slave and the Mastiff

Patrick Chamoiseau

Translated from the French and Creole by Linda Coverdale

COMPANY%20PROFILE%3A
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EName%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Envision%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarted%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E2017%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFounders%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EKarthik%20Mahadevan%20and%20Karthik%20Kannan%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EBased%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20The%20Netherlands%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ESector%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Technology%2FAssistive%20Technology%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInitial%20investment%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20%241.5%20million%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ECurrent%20number%20of%20staff%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%2020%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestment%20stage%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Seed%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestors%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%204impact%2C%20ABN%20Amro%2C%20Impact%20Ventures%20and%20group%20of%20angels%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Updated: December 03, 2022, 8:14 AM`