JENIN, Palestinian Territories — Masked gunmen shot dead a well-known Jewish-Arab actor and director on Monday in the northern West Bank town of Jenin, Palestinian police and medics said.Juliano Mer-Khamis, the 52-year-old director of The Freedom Theatre in Jenin, died when gunmen inside the town’s refugee camp opened fire on his car, hitting him with five bullets, police chief Mohammed Tayim told AFP.Witnesses in the camp told AFP they saw two masked gunmen open fire on his car before speeding away. However, Jenin governor Qadura Musa told AFP initial reports indicated a lone gunman had carried out the attack.
“He was shot by a masked gunman who fired five bullets into the window of his car,” he said. A woman from Bethlehem who was in the car with him was wounded in the hand, he said.
Musa said he was not aware of any threats against Mer-Khamis, however his theatre had been attacked in the past. “We have not arrested anyone yet, but we have formed a crisis group from all the Palestinian security forces to investigate this crime and we hope to have some results within the coming hours.”
An Israeli citizen, Mer-Khamis was born of a Jewish Israeli mother, Arna Mer, and a Palestinian Christian father, Saliba Khamis, and had lived in Jenin for seven years, officials said. He was well-known for his political activism as well as his acting and directing, and most recently starred in “Miral,” (2010) the story of two Palestinian women after the creation of Israel in 1948, which had its premiere at UN headquarters in New York.
With his mixed parentage, Mer-Khamis refused to describe himself as an Arab Israeli, telling Israel’s army radio in 2009: “I am 100 percent Palestinian and 100 percent Jewish.”
| You might have done a little better if you were 100% Paleo and 100% Jewish -- and living in Tel Aviv. |
Fifteen years later, the theatre was destroyed during the second intifada when Israeli troops launched a massive operation to root out gunmen from the refugee camp — then a major militant stronghold. It was rebuilt in 2004 by her actor son with the help of Zakaria Zubeidi, one of the most powerful militants in the city, who himself was part of the theatre project.
The Freedom Theatre doubles as a cultural centre inside the refugee camp which is home to some 16,000 Palestinian refugees, more than half of them minors.
But the theatre was not without its critics. Two years ago, two Molotov cocktails were hurled at the building, which was empty at the time, setting the door on fire. Since then, there have been no reports of attacks or threats against the theatre or those running it, locals and officials said.