(Jericho) Five Palestinians were killed Monday in a new raid by the Israeli army in the occupied West Bank, said an Israeli security official, after search operations launched last week to find suspects following a shooting near of Jericho.
Hamas confirmed in a statement that fighters from its armed wing had been killed in “an armed clash with the Zionist occupation”, without further details.
The early morning raid comes amid escalating Israeli-Palestinian violence and nearly a week after Palestinian local authorities denounced a “siege” imposed on the city of Jericho by Israeli forces since an attack carried out January 28.
Located not far from the Jordanian border, Jericho is a tourist town in the Jordan Valley generally spared from violence.
According to the Israeli security official, the army holds the bodies of the five Palestinians killed during this operation carried out at the entrance to the Palestinian refugee camp of Aqabat Jabr, in Jericho.
The Israeli army announced earlier on Monday that it had killed “several armed assailants” during a “counter-terrorism activity” intended to apprehend Hamas members suspected of being the perpetrators of a recent anti-Israeli attack in the region.
“Several armed assailants were killed after opening fire on (some) soldiers operating in the area,” the army said.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health initially reported three Palestinians injured “by Israeli occupation bullets during the attack on Jericho”, including one in critical condition.
“Heinous crimes”
Israeli forces launched their raid in Jericho after a shootout in the area on January 28, when they say two gunmen approached a restaurant in an Israeli settlement near the Palestinian town.
One of the two men had opened fire in the restaurant, but his weapon had jammed after a single shot which did not cause any injuries.
The suspects fled and the army has since reinforced its presence around Jericho and carried out thorough searches at checkpoints.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh called the Israeli raid an “abominable massacre” in a statement.
“The heroes of the Aqabat Jabr camp fought to the death of martyrs to defend their land and their holy places”, he added, “the repeated killings committed by the enemy in the West Bank will end in disaster for them “.
The governor of Jericho Jihad Abu al-Aasal for his part denounced “a heinous crime which is added to the daily crimes committed by the occupation against our Palestinian people”.
“We call on the world to stop the occupation and protect our people from the occupier,” he told AFP.
On Wednesday, he accused Israel of sealing off the city after the Jan. 28 shooting.
“This is the fifth day of the siege of Jericho,” Jihad Abu al-Aasal told AFP.
This new Israeli military incursion into the Palestinian autonomous zone comes against a backdrop of fears of a new flare-up in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict after the escalation of violence observed since the beginning of the year.
Israeli authorities regularly accuse the Palestinian Authority’s security services of failing to meet their obligations by failing to arrest armed activists planning anti-Israeli attacks.
For nearly a year now, the Israeli army has been stepping up operations in sectors of the West Bank normally under Palestinian security control under the Oslo Accords (1993).
The year 2022, particularly bloody, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict left 235 dead, nearly 90% of Palestinians, according to an AFP count.
Since the beginning of the year, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has claimed the lives of 41 Palestinians (among them combatants and civilians, including minors), 6 Israeli civilians (including a minor), and a Ukrainian woman, according to a tally from AFP based on official Israeli and Palestinian sources.