(Jenin) A Palestinian was killed and 16 others were injured on Tuesday in a new Israeli raid in Jenin, a stronghold of Palestinian factions in the occupied West Bank, to destroy the home of the author of a deadly attack carried out last spring in Tel Aviv.
Posted at 7:34
“There was a 29-year-old martyr and 16 people injured by gunshots or shrapnel as a result of the Israeli aggression on Jenin,” the Palestinian health ministry said in a statement. According to security and medical sources, the man killed is called Mohammad Sabaaneh and was shot in the head.
His body, wrapped in a Palestinian flag and a keffiyeh, was transported through Jenin (north) on the occasion of his funeral, AFP journalists noted.
“A soldier shot him from his Jeep. We were sleeping […] and we received a phone call informing us that he was seriously injured,” his father, Moussa Sabaaneh, told AFP.
The operation in Jenin aimed to destroy the house of Raed Hazem, author of a fatal attack on three Israelis on April 7 in the heart of Tel Aviv. This Palestinian, “without known affiliation” to an armed group according to Israeli intelligence, had been shot dead by the Israeli police after a manhunt in the streets of Tel Aviv.
His family had appealed to the Supreme Court to avoid the demolition of the house, but their request was rejected at the end of May, according to the army.
During Tuesday’s operation, the Israeli army said it faced “a violent riot”.
“The rioters burned tires, threw stones, Molotov cocktails and explosive devices at the forces,” the army said in a statement, adding that the soldiers had “retaliated with riot dispersal means” and that people had been “hit” by bullets.
No soldiers were injured, she added.
1500 arrests
In another raid, in the Jalazoun refugee camp near Ramallah, four Palestinians were arrested and six others injured by Israeli forces, according to the official Palestinian agency Wafa.
“I was at the window and I saw soldiers outside, they asked us to leave the house where we were, my son Moussa and I […] they left with my son,” Nevin Nakhleh told AFP.
From mid-March to early May, 19 people were killed in a wave of anti-Israeli attacks, particularly in the Tel Aviv area.
Some of these attacks were carried out by Israeli Arabs linked to the jihadist organization Islamic State, and others by Palestinians, including some from Jenin, a stronghold of the armed factions in the northern West Bank.
In the wake of the attacks, the army increased raids in the West Bank, in particular in the sectors of Jenin, but also of Nablus, another large city in the north of this territory occupied since 1967 by the Jewish state. These raids were often interspersed with deadly clashes with Palestinians.
They have arrested around 1,500 wanted people and thwarted hundreds of attacks, Israeli army chief Aviv Kohavi said Monday.