(Jerusalem) An Israeli soldier was killed in an armed attack on Saturday evening in East Jerusalem and two Palestinian teenagers earlier in the day in an Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank, new testimonies of an upsurge in violence which “alarms” the UN .
Posted at 8:42 p.m.
“Overnight, an Israeli soldier died of serious injuries inflicted in an armed attack at the Shuafat checkpoint, an Israeli checkpoint near a Palestinian refugee camp in East Jerusalem, the report said. Israeli army in a brief statement.
Two Israelis, including the soldier killed, were seriously injured by bullets during this attack. And a third person, whose nationality has not been specified, was hit by “shrapnel”, according to Magen David Adom (Mada), the Israeli equivalent of the Red Cross.
A police spokesman said in a statement that a “terrorist shot two Israelis, seriously wounding them” at an Israeli checkpoint near the Shuafat Palestinian refugee camp.
According to the Magen David Adom, those injured by gunshot wounds are in their 20s and were taken to a hospital in Jerusalem.
“It is a woman in critical condition and a man in serious condition,” according to the same source. And an AFP reporter saw a woman dressed in a security force uniform receiving treatment in an ambulance.
The Israeli army did not specify the identity of the soldier killed early Sunday morning, but indicated that his family had been notified of the death.
Manhunt
“Police forces are currently searching for a suspect who fled” the scene of the attack, police said, adding that a helicopter and special forces are assisting in the manhunt.
The area was cordoned off by the police. Dozens of officers were deployed around the checkpoint and inside the refugee camp. And an AFP journalist also noted that security measures had been reinforced when entering and leaving Jerusalem.
Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid denounced this “serious terrorist attack” which occurs during the Jewish holiday period. “Terrorism will not win, we are strong even on this difficult evening,” Lapid said in a statement.
Deadly raid in Jenin
Earlier Saturday, two Palestinian teenagers were shot dead in a new Israeli army raid in Jenin, a stronghold of Palestinian armed factions in the northern West Bank, territory occupied, like East Jerusalem, since 1967 by the Israeli army.
Faced with this violence in the West Bank, Palestinian territory occupied by Israel for more than 50 years, the Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas called on the United States to “increase the pressure on Israel so that it ceases its total war against the Palestinian people “.
The Islamic Jihad, a very influential Palestinian armed Islamist movement in the Jenin area, presented the two teenagers as “its martyrs”. The Israeli army said it carried out a raid in Jenin to arrest a 25-year-old Palestinian suspected of being a member of Islamic Jihad and of shooting at soldiers.
Since the start of a wave of anti-Israeli attacks in March that left 21 dead, the Israeli army has stepped up operations in the occupied West Bank, particularly in the areas of Jenin and Nablus.
These raids, often interspersed with clashes with the local population, left more than a hundred dead on the Palestinian side, the heaviest toll in the West Bank for nearly seven years, according to the UN.
“I am alarmed by the deterioration of the security situation, including the increase in armed clashes between Palestinians and the Palestinian security forces in the occupied West Bank” and in East Jerusalem, commented late Saturday evening the UN envoy for the Near East, Tor Wennesland.