On Thursday, 28 December 2023, at around 1:00 A.M., dozens of soldiers and Border Police officers entered the city of Ramallah. According to the media, the goal of the raid was to seize funds Israel alleges were meant for Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
Clashes erupted between the troops and young Palestinian men who threw stones and Molotov cocktails, while the troops countered with tear gas canisters, stun grenades, and live rounds. Around 1:30 A.M., armed Palestinians fired at the Israeli forces, wounded one of them and then escaped into a nearby alley.
Hazem Qatawi, 23, was one of six young men who found themselves in the midst of these clashes as they were returning from a night out downtown. They took cover in the doorway of a building located about 60 meters away from al-Manara Square, the site of the clashes. The street where the six men were hiding was quiet, with no clashes taking place or any soldiers or officers present.
At 2:45 A.M., several military jeeps arrived at al-Manara Square and chased after young men who were in the alleys around the square. Two jeeps, one fitted with a mounted machine gun, drove into the street where the six men were hiding. There were several dozen other young men there who were not taking part in the clashes, either. The soldiers fired live rounds at the young men, who fled. A bullet hit Qatawi in the shoulder and he fell. He was evacuated to a hospital and taken into surgery, but succumbed to his wounds about two hours later.
The clashes continued until 6:00 A.M. Four other Palestinians were wounded by live fire that night and taken to hospital.
B’Tselem field researcher Iyad Hadad collected testimonies from eyewitnesses:
M.M. said on 9 January 2024:
Hazem, my friend, worked at a barbershop. We usually spent our evenings together. On Thursday, 28 December 2023, a few friends our age were hanging out. Hazem joined us at 1:30 A.M., after he finished work. We drove around the streets in downtown Ramallah. Everything was normal, quiet. We parked the car in the Clock Square area. At 2:40 A.M., we were walking on a-Zahraa Street, a side street parallel to the main street. We were about 100 meters away from al-Manara Square.
People were saying there were soldiers on al-Hisba (Market) Street, east of the square, so we decided to go to the City Center building, which is about 60 meters away from the square, to watch what was happening from there. But the clashes were in the market area, out of our field of vision, so I don’t know what happened there.
From where we were standing, we only heard live fire and stun grenades being shot, and we realized there were clashes with another Israeli force in the “Rukab” area, about 100 meters away from us.
We were in the middle, in-between all the clashes, and didn’t know where to go. We couldn’t go back to where the car was parked, either, because we were afraid there would be more soldiers there. It was very dangerous, so we preferred to stay where we were, near the City Center building. In those moments, we felt it was the safest place for us. Several dozen young guys near us had spread out in the intersection across from the City Center building. There was no stone-throwing in the area.
A few minutes later, at 2:45 A.M., several army vehicles entered al-Manara Square. Two of them turned and drove along the road in our direction. One of them had a machine gun mounted on it, which was firing. When we saw what was happening, we immediately ran away. Hazem was next to me, and I thought he ran away with us in the same direction. When we were about 100 meters away, we heard shouts and cries for help behind us.
It was only then that we realized Hazem hadn’t run away with us. We called him on the phone, but he didn’t answer. Just then, I saw an ambulance, which had probably been waiting on a-Zahraa street, driving to where we were standing before, in front of the City Center building. A guy we know passed by us and told us he saw Hazem on the ground, and that he was probably the person who was injured. He told us that the ambulance had already evacuated him to the Palestine Medical Complex.
We walked in between the buildings and through side passages until we managed to get to our car and from there, we drove to the hospital right away. We saw Hazem being given CPR in the ER trauma room. We were told that he was wounded in the shoulder and his life was in danger. About 15 minutes later, he was taken into the operating room, and around 5:30 A.M., we were told he died. They said the bullet hit multiple internal organs and caused severe internal bleeding.
Ziad ‘Abdallah, 53, a Red Crescent paramedic, said on 6 January 2024:
On Thursday, 28 December 2023, we were told on the communication system that the Israeli army had entered downtown Ramallah. We drove the ambulance there, but when we got to al-Manara Square, two army jeeps blocked our way. We turned around and reached the area of the square from a different direction. It was around 1:30 A.M. We heard intense shooting from the direction of the market and the square. It sounded like there were clashes there.
Half an hour later, at 2:00 A.M., I saw six Border Police officers walking towards al-Manara Square. They were escorted by two jeeps. In the meantime, a large number of men had also gathered in the street where we were standing. There were about 50 guys there.
The officers came closer. They threw some stun grenades but mostly used live fire. We drove to a parallel street. We heard intense live fire on the other side of the square, to the east of us, but we didn’t see what was happening. At about 2:45 A.M., we heard shouts and calls for help coming from there. The shooting continued, and then we saw some young guys running away, shouting, from the direction of the City Center building towards us.
We drove up there, and then we saw a guy lying injured on the sidewalk in front of the building. He was lying on his left side, screaming. When we got to him, a military vehicle also came up from the opposite direction and stopped in front of us, but no one got out of it. My colleague and I got off and went to the wounded man with the stretcher. We picked him up, put him in the ambulance and took him to the Palestine Medical Complex.
I treated him on the way. He was wounded in the right shoulder and his clothes were bloodstained, but there wasn’t a lot of blood. I hooked him up to oxygen and an IV, and bandaged his wound. We got to the hospital within about ten minutes, and they took him into the operating room right away. We went back to al-Manara Square because the clashes continued there. Two hours later, I saw on social media that he’d died of his wounds.
