At roughly 2:30 a.m. Feb. 27, Israeli jeeps entered the West Bank town of Birzeit, surrounded the Washaha house and ordered everyone out. They had come to arrest Thaer Washaha, an activist in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) who had already been previously imprisoned by the occupation. According to Thaer’s father, the soldiers ordered the men to take off their shirts and forced them to lie down on the cold ground for two hours. The army detained Thaer’s brother, Ramiz, their cousin Fadi Sedqi and another young man Samir al-Qaisi.

The third brother, 24-year-old Mutaz, refused to leave the house and surrender. In a standoff that lasted several hours, the Israeli army fired rockets at the house before going inside and killing Mutaz by shooting him in the chest and head. They then proceeded to demolish part of the house before withdrawing in the early morning.

Of Birzeit’s land, 75% is classified under the Oslo Accords as Area B, where the Palestinian Authority (PA) is responsible for civil matters, but Israel has paramount control in terms of security. The rest of the land is under Area C, where civil and military control is in the hands of the Israeli occupation. The conundrum that even in areas under its jurisdiction, the PA is powerless or forbidden from actively challenging Israeli raids and the aggressive policies of occupation.

Mutaz was the 45th Palestinian to be killed since the PA resumed public negotiations with Israel under US patronage at the end of July 2013. According to a report by the International Middle East Media Center published two days before Mutaz’s murder, Israel has moved to build 10,490 settlement units, arrested more than 2,700 Palestinians and demolished 154 Palestinians houses in the same time period.