Palestinian gunmen kidnapped Israeli teen from hospital operating room, murdered him

The Druze family of Tiran Fero, 18, charged that he was kidnapped from the operating room while still alive. Israel is demanding the body be returned.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Israel is demanding the return of the body of a Druze teenager snatched early Wednesday morning from a Jenin hospital by Palestinian terrorists after they learned that he was an Israeli citizen.

The father of 18-year-old Tiran Fero has charged that the gunmen kidnapped his son while he was still alive.

“We went to the hospital in Jenin,” the father, a resident of Daliyat al-Karmel in northern Israel, told the Hebrew-language N12 site. “He was treated well, his condition improved, and then out of nowhere a lot of armed men came, I estimate about 20, who kidnapped him in front of my eyes.”

“They just went into the operating room and took him out. In other words, you can say – they murdered him. He was alive, in a serious but stable condition; as soon as they took him, it was over. Then we heard gunfire as if they were celebrating and proud of the deed.”

Tiran’s uncle told Hebrew-language Kan Reshet Bet that the men shouted, fired into the air, and “nobody dared to stop them. They disconnected him from the machines and tossed him into a car.”

“If we had not complied, they’d have kidnapped us too,” he said. “We barely escaped and hid somewhere until [Israeli] security forces got us out. We were lucky. It was like a scene from a movie.”

According to the IDF, the teen, who had been with a friend at the time, died before the abduction.

“The two were involved in a serious car accident and were taken to a local hospital for medical treatment, where one of them died of his injuries,” said the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit in a statement.

“His friend was taken to medical treatment in Israel in serious condition. The young man’s body was taken from the hospital in Jenin and it is expected that it will be returned to his family in Israel as soon as possible, as a necessary humanitarian measure.”

A local unit of the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade has taken responsibility for storming the hospital and forcibly removing the body.

The IDF, which is demanding that the body be returned to Israel, immediately closed off all crossings in the Jenin area and banned the entrance of all workers into Israel.

The Palestinian Authority, which is officially in charge in Jenin but in reality has little sway there, is reportedly also involved in efforts to return the body, as is the spiritual leader of the Druze community in Israel and the mayor of Daliyat al-Karmel.

“They’re trying to do everything to get him out,” Tiran’s father told Kan News. “He’s just a little boy, he hasn’t even finished school yet. He’s not a soldier.”