(Tulkarem) Two Palestinians were killed in a raid by the Israeli army before dawn on Sunday in the northern occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Health Ministry said, with the Israeli army saying it had carried out a “anti-terrorist” operation.
Since the start of the year, the West Bank has been the scene of repeated Palestinian attacks against Israelis and recurring violence by Jewish settlers against Palestinians. Israel regularly carries out military operations in this territory which it has occupied since 1967.
“Two Palestinians were killed by live Israeli bullets” in the Nour Chams refugee camp, near the town of Tulkarem, the Palestinian ministry said.
The victims were identified as Ossaid Abou Ali, 22, and Abdel Rahmane Abou Daghash, 32, he added.
In a statement, the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas claimed that Ossaid Abou Ali was one of its fighters.
The Israeli army, for its part, indicated that it had carried out “counter-terrorism” operations in the camp.
Israeli forces dismantled an “operational command center” in a building and discovered a large number of explosive devices, the army said.
During the operation, “suspects opened fire and threw explosive devices at the forces who responded with live fire,” according to her.
A soldier was “slightly injured by bullet fragments,” she added.
“Snipers”
Ibrahim al-Nimer, a camp resident and local representative of the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club, an association defending the rights of Palestinians detained by Israel, said the army “entered the camp after 2 a.m.” and “demolished […] some houses.”
Several military vehicles entered the camp during the night, according to another resident, Omar Sabhan.
“It was scary. There were snipers […] and they were shooting at everything that moved,” he added, saying that “everyone is with the resistance” of the armed groups.
Later on Sunday, many Palestinians attended the funerals of the two Palestinians in the refugee camp.
An AFP journalist who visited the camp shortly after the raid saw the roof and walls of a building completely collapsed.
Three Palestinian factions – Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – called for “strengthening resistance, especially armed resistance” against “increasing Zionist aggression”.
In another overnight incident, the army arrested “eight wanted suspects” at Birzeit University in the West Bank, saying the group had “planned to carry out a terrorist attack.”
The Palestinians, who want to create an independent state, are demanding Israel’s withdrawal from the lands it occupied in 1967 and the dismantling of the Jewish colonies that were established there and are considered illegal under international law.
At least 241 Palestinians, 32 Israelis, a Ukrainian and an Italian have been killed since the start of the year in violence linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to an AFP count established from official sources.
Violence in Gaza
These statistics include, on the Palestinian side, combatants and civilians including minors, and on the Israeli side, the majority of civilians including minors, and three members of the Arab minority.
In recent days, violence has spread to the Gaza Strip.
Since September 13, they have pitted Palestinian demonstrators and Israeli forces almost daily on both sides of the separation barrier between Israel and the Palestinian territory of Gaza, subject to an Israeli blockade since Hamas took power there in 2007. .
Palestinians have repeatedly demonstrated at the border after Israel closed the Erez crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip, a decision that an Israeli NGO called “collective punishment” as it affects several thousand of Palestinian workers.
Six Palestinians have been killed and nearly 100 injured in border violence since September 13, according to the Hamas health ministry in Gaza.