An Israeli raid on Thursday killed two Palestinians, an Islamic Jihad leader and one of his close associates, in the Jenin area, at the heart of the biggest wave of violence in seven years in the West Bank in recent months, the authorities said. local authorities.
According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, Mohammed Ayman al-Saadi, 26, and Naïm Jamal Zubaidi, 27, were “killed by the Israeli army during an operation at dawn” in the area of Jenin, in the northern West Bank, a Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967.
According to local sources, Al-Saadi was a leader of the armed wing of Islamic Jihad in the Palestinian refugee camp considered a stronghold of Palestinian armed factions, and Zubaidi one of his close associates.
For its part, the Israeli army announced that it had killed two “important leaders” of the Palestinian factions during an operation in the Jenin sector which also led to the arrest of nine people.
Last week, fighters in Jenin abducted a young Israeli man being treated at a local hospital after being injured in a road accident in the occupied West Bank.
Intense negotiations were carried out by the Palestinian Authority of President Mahmoud Abbas to convince the fighters to return the remains of the young man, of whom it is not clear whether he had been abducted dead or alive according to the family’s versions or the army, in order to avoid violence.
“From our point of view, there were two ways to recover this body: either via the Palestinian Authority, or via an armed operation in the city, in the camp, which would probably have been very, very violent”, had indicated an Israeli military official.
The abductions of Israelis, dead or alive, have already served as bargaining chips for armed groups, in order to demand the release of prisoners or the return of the bodies of Palestinians killed in clashes and kept by Israel.
In the wake of deadly anti-Israeli attacks in the spring, the army carried out more than 2,000 raids in the West Bank, including in Jenin and Nablus. The violence in the West Bank has killed more than 130 Palestinians, the heaviest toll in seven years, according to the UN.