Palestinian worker dies after falling from construction site during Israeli forces' raid in Jerusalem

By Ahmed Asmar

ANKARA (AA) - A Palestinian worker has succumbed to the wounds he sustained after falling from a construction site in the occupied East Jerusalem when Israeli forces raided the area.

In a statement, the Jerusalem Governorate, the highest Palestinian local authority in the occupied city, named the victim as Raafat Abdulaziz Hammad, 35, who died of his injuries late Wednesday after being chased by the Israeli forces and falling from a height of five floors at a construction site in Jerusalem.

According to his family, Hammad and other workers in the area were chased by the Israeli forces for over two hours for unknown reasons.

The statement considered the incident as part of Israel's systematic policy of pursuing Palestinian workers who have no option to reach their workplaces in East Jerusalem but to climb the Israeli-built separation wall, putting them in the face of Israeli fire and targeting.

In 2002, under the pretext of security, Israel began unilaterally constructing a wall to separate Palestinians in the occupied West Bank from Israel and occupied East Jerusalem, as well as from Israeli settlements illegally built on Palestinian land in the West Bank.

In 2004, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued an advisory opinion ruling that the wall is illegal because most of it is built on Palestinian land inside the occupied West Bank.

Since the start of the Israeli onslaught on the Gaza Strip on Oct. 7, 2023, at least 935 Palestinians have been killed and nearly 7,000 injured in attacks by the Israeli army and illegal settlers across the occupied West Bank, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

In July 2024, the ICJ also declared Israel’s longstanding occupation of Palestinian territories illegal, calling for the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.