The 2000 Ramallah lynching[1] was an attack that took place early during the Second Intifada on 12 October 2000 in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, when a Palestinian crowd of passing funeral marchers broke in and killed two Israeli military reservists and then mutilated their bodies.

[2] The incident occurred during a funeral for a Palestinian child, Khalil Zahran,[3] who had been killed by Israeli forces two days earlier.

Nurzhitz set out at 7 a.m. in his Ford Escort, picked up Avrahami and phoned his father at 9 a.m., stating that he had been ordered to turn up at an army base near the Israeli settlement of Beit El.

[13] Reaching a Palestinian Authority roadblock, where previously Israeli soldiers had been turned back, the reservists were detained by PA policemen and taken to the local police station at Ramallah's twin city el-Bireh, not far from Arafat's headquarters.

[14] The arrest and detention coincided with the conclusion of a funeral service, attended by thousands of mourners, for Halil Zahran (17), a Palestinian youth who had been killed in clashes with Israeli forces two days earlier.

At this point, a Palestinian (later identified as Aziz Salha), appeared at the window, displaying his blood-soaked hands to the crowd, which erupted into cheers.

[15] Soon after, the crowd dragged the two mutilated bodies to Al-Manara Square in the city center and began an impromptu victory celebration.

If he becomes the president of Palestine, he'll be the leader of a rough, Third World country and have to deal with sewage in Hebron, drugs in Gaza, and the corruption in his own government.

"[21][22] In response, the Israeli military launched a series of strikes against Palestinian Authority targets in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

ABC News producer Nasser Atta said that when the crew began filming the lynching, "youths came to us and they stopped us with some knives, with some beating.

"[26] Following the lynching on 16 October 2000, Riccardo Cristiano, the deputy head of the Jerusalem bureau of Italy's state television channel RAI, published a letter (see text) in Al-Hayat al-Jadida, the official daily newspaper of the Palestinian Authority (PA).

The Israeli Foreign Ministry stated, "His letter implies that he will never again film events which are liable to cast a negative light on the PA, such as the recent lynching of IDF reservists in Ramallah....

[25] In relation to media coverage of the event, the Israeli Foreign Ministry accused Palestinian broadcasting stations of making "every effort to hide the horrible pictures which were shown around the world."