The family of Omar Abdalmajeed As’ad, an 80-year-old Palestinian who died in January while blindfolded and handcuffed by Israeli occupation soldiers in the village of Jiljilya, north of Ramallah, said yesterday they were rejecting an Israeli compensation offer in return for dismissing a lawsuit they had submitted before US and Israeli courts.
The old man was going home after a visit to his relatives in January when Israeli soldiers stopped his vehicle and pulled him out of it, blindfolded, handcuffed, and harassed him before leaving him in a building that was under construction. He was found dead in the same building shortly after the Israeli army had left the town.
Nawwaf As’ad, Omar’s brother, told WAFA that the family categorically reject the principle of compensation, and are insisting on holding the Israeli perpetrators to account for his brother’s tragic death.
As’ad condemned Israeli reports that the family have accepted financial compensation in exchange for closing the lawsuit, stressing that he had instructed the family’s lawyer to continue the legal procedures until the perpetrators are held to account for their crime.
He added, “We will not give up the case for any reason. The death of my brother Omar cannot be compensated with money. His wife and children miss him and his grandchildren are still calling for him and looking for him at home.”
As’ad said he assured the US Deputy Assistant Secretary for Palestinian-Israeli Affairs Hadi Amr when he visited the home of deceased Omar in Jalaliya last September that the family would continue the legal procedures in the Israeli and US courts.
An autopsy carried out to the body of the Palestinian-American elderly showed that he had died of a stress-induced heart attack caused by the circumstances of his detention, with signs of bruises and abrasions on his body and head.
Source: Palestine News & Information Agency