According to the family of 17-year-old Tiran Fero, Palestinian terrorists entered a hospital in Jenin where he was on life support after he was critically injured in a car crash and disconnected him from hospital equipment while he was still alive.
Fero's uncle said, “They fired their weapons in the air and yelled in Arabic; no one dared to stop them. They disconnected him from the life support machines and threw him into a vehicle.”
No terrorist group has claimed responsibility for the crime but according to Ferro’s uncle, the gunmen belonged to Islamic Jihad and believed that the teen was an undercover Israeli officer, and the terrorists were planning to ransom Ferro back to the Jewish state. Palestinian terrorists in the past have undertaken kidnappings in order to ransom Israel.
According to the Jerusalem Post, “negotiations were led by Maj.-Gen. Ghassan Alian from the Defense Ministry’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories along with the Israel Police, Shin Bet, and other civilian bodies, including international mediators. Rafik Halabi, head of the Daliat al-Carmel Council, said Qatar, Jordan, and Egypt were also involved in the talks.”
According to the Post’s source, there were no negotiations with the terrorists and the only demand was to the Palestinian Authority that the body be returned. The source added that if Ramallah had not acted, the Israeli Defense Forces would have used other means to get the body back.
According to some local reports on social media, a small unit of well-trained and well-armed masked Druze men gave an ultimatum to the terrorists that if the body was not returned by they will reach Jenin by themselves.
The body was transferred to the Palestinian Authority’s General Intelligence building in Jenin before being brought to the Salam crossing at 4 am by ambulance and buried later in the day.
The Palestinian governor of Jenin Akram Rajoub told Israel’s Kan public radio that the abduction of Fero’s body was “a big mistake.” According to the Post, the Palestinian Authority was “embarrassed” by the incident, and residents in the West Bank said it was “a disaster for the PA. They knew that if they failed to return the body, they would have lost all legitimacy to operate in Jenin in the future as well.”
Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz thanked Palestinian officials “who worked tirelessly” for the return of Fero’s body saying, “This is a basic, humanitarian measure taken after a horrific incident.”
The incident outraged the Druze community, which demanded the body be returned, and took to the streets to protest.
On Wednesday, bombings at two bus stops in Jerusalem killed a 16-year-old Canadian Jewish teen and wounded 22 people including 2 Americans.
The Jewish state has been experiencing a wave of terror attacks. Last week, three Israelis were killed in a stabbing attack at the entrance to the settlement of Ariel in the Shomron region of the West Bank and a car exploded close to an IDF post near the settlement of Mevo Dotan.
