A young Druze-Israeli man who was seriously injured in a car accident was stolen from a Palestinian hospital by terrorists who thought he was an IDF soldier, hoping to demand a ransom for his return.
By United with Israel Staff
Tiran Fero was an 18-year-old victim of a tragic car accident near Jenin on Tuesday morning. He was rushed to a nearby Palestinian hospital after the crash.
His father claims 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.”
Fero was an Israeli from Daliyat al-Karmel, a Druze-majority town in the north, and Palestinian gunmen snatched him from the Jenin-area hospital, under the misapprehension that he was an IDF soldier, the Israeli military and Palestinian media reported.
After Fero arrived at the hospital, social media users posted photos of Fero’s Israeli ID online, reported Times of Israel.
The 18-year-old was in twelfth grade in his hometown, and was not a soldier. An unnamed Palestinian security official told the Haaretz daily that the body-snatchers seek to ransom Fero’s body for the release of Palestinian terrorists from prison.
Israeli officials and the Druze community’s spiritual leader are working to secure the return of Fero’s body.
Stealing the bodies of deceased Israelis is an established tactic among Palestinian terrorists.
After IDF soldiers Lt. Hadar Goldin and Staff Sgt. Oron Shaul were killed in a 2014 conflict with Hamas in Gaza, which was sparked by the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers by Hamas members, the terror group took their bodies captive.
The terror group also holds hostage two living Israeli civilians, Avera Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed, both of whom suffered from known mental health issues when they walked into Gaza and were taken hostage by Hamas.
Hamas continues to try to extort Israel for the release of Mengistu and al-Sayed and the return of Goldin and Shaul’s remains.
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