Tuesday was not an ordinary day in the life of the senior high school student, Atallah Rayyan, who had finished one of his semester exams hours before being killed by Israeli forces, which deprived him of seeing the results of his exam or his school certificate.

The Israeli forces executed Rayyan,17, claiming that he tried to carry out a stabbing attack at the Ariel settlement junction between Salfit and Nablus, in the northern West Bank.

Dozens of citizens flocked to the house of the martyr's family in the town of Qarawat Bani Hassan, west of Salfit, to console his family and stand by them after being informed of their son's martyrdom.

The father of the martyr, Mohammed Rayyan, who sat in the audience seemed coherent as he spoke about his son, despite the signs of oppression and grief that appeared on his face.

Rayyan told Safa that "His son, Atallah, is a religiously committed young man who is loved in his hometown and was a role model with his etiquette and morals."

Atallah prayed at dawn in the mosque and returned home to study until the exam date approached, so he went to school and took the exam and then went to help his father, who owns a marble factory in Rujeib town, east of Nablus.

His father says: "I used to ask him to help me with my work and when he leaves his school, he find it difficult to secure transportation to take him directly to Nablus, so he used to be forced to move in two stages."

Atallah was supposed to reach Ariel settlement junction, then take another vehicle that would take him to Nablus or the town of Huwara and from there he would go to his father's factory.

The father added, "When he reached Ariel settlement junction, the Israeli soldiers shot him in cold blood. They left him bleeding for more than an hour and did not allow him to be treated. After he was martyred, they took him for autopsy."

Rejected novel

Atallah rejects Israel’s narrative about the circumstances of his son’s martyrdom. He said: “Israel, as usual, repeats the same story. It puts a knife next to the martyr and claims that he tried to carry out a stabbing attack.”

He added, "They killed my son, as they did with many martyrs in the same location and in the same manner."

He points out that his son is not a stranger to the region, as he has been, daily, following the same road for almost two years.

The eyewitness accounts support the claim of the father of the martyr Rayyan that his son was subjected to a cold-blooded execution.

One of them said, "The soldiers shot and wounded a young man who was passing by the junction, but it was not a fatal injury."

He added, "The soldiers attacked the young man and fought with him, knocking him to the ground and began hitting him with their rifles on the head for several minutes."

Threat and intimidation

Minutes after revealing the martyr’s identity, the Israeli forces stormed his family’s home and searched it.

His father explained that the soldiers had taken the size of the house, promised to demolish it, and informed him that they would not return his son's body.

They also interrogated the martyr's family members about him and his friends, confiscated his belongings, and destroyed the contents of the house.

In addition, his father demands to take his son’s body, as well as he demanded that an international committee to examine all the cases of killing that are practiced against the Palestinian people in the streets of the West Bank, whether by the Israeli soldiers or settlers.

At the Qarawat Bani Hassan Secondary School, where the martyr Rayyan was studying, his teachers and colleagues were saddened as they sit for the exam the next day, while the martyr seat was left empty except for a photo of his ID, his pen, and the Palestinian flag.

Source : Safa