HEBRON - A young Palestinian man died on Tuesday after being badly beaten in an ‘exorcism’, medical and police sources in the West Bank town of Hebron said.
The family of the 19-year-old with psychological problems had called in two ‘healers’, a man and a woman, who beat the young man to drive out evil ‘spirits’, Palestinian police sources said. He was critically injured and taken to hospital in Hebron where he died, police and medics said. The pair who administered the beating was arrested, as were the victim's father and brother. Moreover, the Gaza Strip's sole power plant has halted production, the Hamas-run energy authority said Tuesday, in the latest dispute with the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority over fuel tax. Relations between Islamist movement Hamas and the PA are at rock bottom despite an April 2014 agreement that installed a unity govt and was meant to centralise administration of the Palestinian territories.
While the Palestinians fail to patch up their differences, the PA runs the West Bank and Hamas remains in control of Gaza, which faces its worst humanitarian crisis ever after a bloody and destructive war with Israel in July-August 2014. ‘The levying of fuel taxes by the finance ministry in Ramallah is preventing the (Hamas) energy authority from running the power station,’ a statement from the authority said. The PA must ‘lift all taxes on fuel’ to get the plant up and running, it said. Hamas pays the PA for fuel imported to besieged Gaza, but is short of cash and had been unable to cover the additional costs in tax.