(Jenin) The Israeli army on Saturday carried out an operation in Jenin in the occupied West Bank during which a Palestinian fighter was killed in an exchange of fire, two days after a deadly attack in Tel Aviv whose perpetrator was from this refugees camp.
Updated yesterday at 3:16 p.m.
Islamic Jihad said in a statement that one of its fighters, Ahmed al-Saadi, 23, died in clashes in Jenin camp, a stronghold of Palestinian armed factions in the West Bank, Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967.
Twelve Palestinians were injured, several of them shot, during the Israeli military operation which lasted several hours, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent.
PHOTO JAAFAR ASHTIYEH, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
A compact crowd carried the remains of Ahmed al-Saadi, killed in clashes, on Saturday.
“Attackers shot at armed forces and border police who were carrying out an anti-terrorist operation in the Jenin refugee camp […] In response, the troops opened fire in their direction”, indicated the army without deploring casualties in its ranks.
After the operation, a packed crowd attended the funeral of the slain fighter whose remains wrapped in the Islamic Jihad flag were carried on a stretcher into the camp.
On Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said he had given carte blanche to the security forces to act after a series of bloody attacks that hit Israel since March 22.
The latest, Thursday in Tel Aviv, cost the lives of three Israelis. It was led by Raëd Hazem, a Palestinian “with no known affiliation” to an armed group according to Israeli intelligence, who was shot dead by Israeli police after a manhunt.
” Everything that’s necessary ”
The attack was welcomed by Islamic Jihad and the other Palestinian armed Islamist movement Hamas which controls the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian territory under Israeli blockade. But she was condemned by Palestinian Authority President and leader of the secular Fatah party Mahmoud Abbas, based in Ramallah in the West Bank.
“Whoever helped (the assailant), indirectly or directly, will pay the price,” Bennett warned after the Tel Aviv shooting, ordering the closure of the Jalameh crossing linking the Jenin region to Israel.
On Saturday evening, Cogat, the Israeli Defense Ministry body that oversees civilian activities in the Palestinian Territories, announced the closure of a second crossing point in the area, measures to limit visits to and from Jenin. and an “intensification” of controls in the region.
“We will do whatever it takes, whatever it takes, for as long and wherever it takes to restore security,” Israeli army chief Aviv Kochavi told soldiers in the West Bank, according to a video released by the army.
According to Palestinian sources, the father of the Tel Aviv assailant, Fathi Hazem, is a retired officer in the Palestinian security forces.
Destroy the family home
On Friday, Fathi Hazem defended his son’s act in front of hundreds of people who came to his home, calling on young people to “destroy the Zionists”.
Residents in Jenin said they suspected the army carried out the operation in an attempt, among other things, to arrest Fathi Hazem.
But according to an Israeli security source, the objective was above all to locate the family residence in order to destroy it, according to an Israeli policy according to which the family house of Palestinians who have committed attacks must be destroyed. A measure denounced by NGOs as a “collective punishment”.
Almost a week ago, the army carried out an operation in Jenin which claimed the lives of three Islamic Jihad fighters. Because it is from this region that the Palestinian author of an attack which killed five people on March 29 in Bnei Brak, near Tel Aviv, also came from.
In total since March 22, 13 people have died in four attacks in Israel. Besides those in Bnei Brak and Tel Aviv, one hit Hadera (north) and another Beersheva (south) and both of these attacks were carried out by Israeli Arabs linked to the Islamic State jihadist group.
Almost 20 years ago to the day and after deadly anti-Israeli attacks, the army launched a major offensive in Jenin during which 53 Palestinians, more than half civilians, and 23 Israeli soldiers been killed in ten days of intense fighting.