Nablus: Palestinian resistance factions mourned the leader Nour al-Bitawi, who was martyred along with resistance fighter Hikmat Abdul Nabi by Israeli occupation fire after being besieged inside a house east of Nablus. They called on West Bank youth to escalate their resistance and strike the occupier with “qualitative and painful” operations.
According to National Iraqi News Agency, the Islamic Jihad Movement said in a statement that al-Bitawi, a commander in the Jenin Battalion affiliated with the Al-Quds Brigades, the movement’s military wing, was martyred yesterday in a “heroic confrontation with the occupation forces” in Nablus while being pursued and besieged.
The statement added, “While we are proud of the martyrdom of our leaders and mujahideen in defense of the nation’s sanctities and as an expression of our people’s steadfastness in the face of massacres and policies of displacement and annexation, we affirm that we, along with all the resistance forces within our people, will continue to confront this crime until the aggression is repelled.”
Al-Bitawi was described as one of the most wanted men by the occupation forces, who have sought to assassinate resistance leaders in West Bank cities and camps.
For its part, the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) said in a statement that “the occupation’s policy of assassinating resistance fighters and escalating its targeting of our people in the West Bank are desperate attempts to target the resistance in the West Bank, which has recently witnessed qualitative operations such as the shooting attack near Jenin and the ramming attack in Hebron.”
The statement added that while it mourns “the two resistance martyrs, Nour Abdel Karim al-Bitawi from Jenin and Hikmat Ghaith Abdel Nabi from Nablus, who were martyred during a heroic clash after being besieged inside a house in the Masaken al-Sha’biyya area east of Nablus, it affirms that “the assassination of resistance fighters in the West Bank will only increase the determination of its revolutionary youth to confront.”