Three Palestinians, including two Islamic Jihad fighters, were killed Thursday morning in an exchange of fire with Israeli forces in the northern occupied West Bank.
This event comes a few hours before the arrival in Israel of the American Minister of Defense, Lloyd Austin, and shortly after the call of a United Nations envoy to end the “cycle of violence” in the West Bank, Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967.
The three men were “martyred” by Israeli forces in Jaba, a small town south of Jenin, according to a statement from the Palestinian Health Ministry, identifying them as Sufyan Fakhoury, 26, Ahmed Fashafsha, 22 , and Nayef Malaysha, 25.
According to the Israeli police, special forces accompanied soldiers intervening in Jaba to arrest people suspected of having committed attacks against the army in this area of the West Bank.
Two of the three men killed belonged to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement, she said in a statement.
“During the operation, shots from the car of the wanted men targeted the undercover Border Police officers,” she said. The latter “responded by shooting and killed the three men in the car”.
“A number of weapons and explosive devices were found in their vehicle,” she added.
For his part, the Israeli Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, praised the action of the police forces, which “eliminated heinous terrorists who opened fire against our defenders”, according to a press release from his services.
The Islamic Jihad for its part denounced a “despicable assassination”, according to a press release.
“Cycle of Abuse”
On Tuesday, the author of an attack that claimed the lives of two young Israeli settlers on February 26, was killed along with five other Palestinians, during an Israeli army raid in the refugee camp of Jenin, another city Palestinians in the region.
Hit by gunfire during this operation, a 14-year-old boy died, the Palestinian Ministry of Health announced on Thursday.
Since the entry into office at the end of December of one of the most right-wing governments in the history of Israel, under the leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu, deadly clashes have followed one another, particularly in the West Bank, where the Israeli army has been multiplying its operations for nearly a year.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has claimed the lives of 75 Palestinian adults and children, combatants and civilians since the beginning of the year.
Thirteen Israeli adults and children, including members of the security forces and civilians, as well as a Ukrainian woman, were killed during the same period, according to an AFP tally based on official sources from both sides.
“We are caught in a cycle of violence that must be stopped immediately,” said Tor Wennesland, UN envoy for peace in the Middle East, in a statement, recalling the recent call by the United Nations Security Council asking ” the parties to exercise calm and restraint, and to refrain from any act of provocation and incitement to violence”.
As the start of Ramadan approaches in April – during which Passover is due to fall this year – many observers fear that an incident on the esplanade of the Mosques of Jerusalem, the third holiest site in Islam, built on the ruins of the Jewish Temple destroyed by the Romans in 70, degenerated into an outbreak of uncontrollable violence.
The United States has thus repeatedly expressed its concern about the resurgence of violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin is due to meet his counterpart Yoav Gallant on Thursday, as part of a multi-stop trip to the Middle East.
This meeting, which was to be held in Tel Aviv, will finally take place at Ben Gurion airport, the Pentagon spokesman said.
A US official said Israeli authorities were “worried about protests planned near the Defense Ministry headquarters” in the coastal city.