(Tulkarem) Seven Palestinians were killed Wednesday in two refugee camps in the occupied West Bank where clashes continued in the afternoon, we learned from Israeli and Palestinian sources.
Three men were killed overnight by an Israeli airstrike on a car in the Balata camp (center), in Nablus, according to the report given by the official Palestinian Wafa agency.
Israeli authorities had previously announced that they had eliminated members of a “terrorist cell” who were preparing to carry out an attack.
In the Tulkarem camp (northwest), four Palestinians were killed Wednesday morning, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent. The Wafa agency mentioned a drone strike.
At the beginning of the afternoon, the fighting continued in this refugee camp, an AFP photographer hearing intermittent fire from automatic weapons, noting the presence of armored vehicles and the overhead of drones whose buzzing was incessant .
PHOTO ZAIN JAAFAR, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Three men were killed overnight by an Israeli airstrike on a car in the Balata camp.
“The Israeli army besieged the camp after midnight”, from the air and on the ground with “very many soldiers and tanks” which caused “a lot of damage”, camp official Faiçal Salama told AFP. , confirming the death of four “young men targeted by Israeli bombings”.
Israeli authorities have not commented on the strike and the clashes in Tulkarem.
They had previously announced that they had killed in an airstrike in Balata a Palestinian described as the leader of a “terrorist cell” who was planning an “imminent and large-scale” attack.
In a joint statement, the army and the internal security service, Shin Beth, described the man as “the head of a terrorist infrastructure in the Balata (refugee) camp in Nablus” and identified him as “Amed Abdullah Abu Shalal”.
He was killed with members of his “cell”, the number of whom was not specified, during “a specific airstrike”, according to the Israeli authorities.
AFPTV images show a pile of debris and the pulverized and charred carcass of the vehicle hit near the Balata camp.
Sajed Hazim, a resident of the camp, testified that he was awakened by a loud explosion, then described the arrival of an ambulance to which Israeli troops blocked access.
The body of an unidentified man was taken to Nablus hospital after “the occupier bombed a car near the Balata camp,” the Palestinian Authority Health Ministry said.
“Imminent” attack
Israeli services accuse Amed Abdullah Abou Shalal in particular of responsibility for an attack in a Jewish settlement neighborhood in the East Jerusalem sector in April 2023, in which two residents were injured in gunfire.
Israeli authorities reported intelligence that the cell was planning “an imminent terrorist attack.”
The group “received funding and instructions from Iranian sources who cooperate with terrorist command centers in the Gaza Strip and abroad,” say the Shin Beth and the army, without further details.
Since the start of the war in the Gaza Strip on October 7, tension has been extreme in the West Bank, where Israeli security forces have carried out almost daily raids.
At least 360 Palestinians were killed there, according to the Palestinian Authority.
The war was triggered by attacks carried out from Gaza by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas on Israeli soil, which led to the death of around 1,140 people on the Israeli side, mainly civilians killed on October 7, according to an AFP count. based on official Israeli figures.
Since October 7, 24,448 Palestinians, the vast majority women, children and adolescents, have been killed in the Gaza Strip by Israeli bombings and military operations, according to the Hamas Ministry of Health.