(Kafr Dan) Israeli forces on Monday killed two Palestinians on the sidelines of an operation in the West Bank to destroy the residence of Palestinians accused of involvement in a deadly attack on an Israeli commander, local officials said.
Palestinians Mohammed Samer Hoshieh, 22, and Fouad Mohammed Abed, 25, were killed by Israeli fire during an army raid in the Jenin area, a hotbed of tension in the occupied West Bank in recent months, a announced the Palestinian Ministry of Health in a statement.
For its part, the Israeli army indicated in a short message to the press that it had carried out an operation in the village of Kfar Dan, located in the Jenin sector, “in order to demolish the residences of assailants involved in firing against the crossing point” of Jalameh, also called Gilboa, and which had been fatal to the Israeli commander Bar Falah.
The military had no immediate comment on the deaths announced by the Palestinian ministry.
Clouds of smoke billowed from the small village of Kafr Dan as the two houses were leveled with explosives shortly after sunrise on Monday.
Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that 18 other people were arrested by the Israeli army during nighttime raids across the West Bank.
Armed Palestinians opened fire on soldiers on September 14 at the Jalameh crossing point, between the Palestinian sector of Jenin and Israel, killing the commander Bar Falah.
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the armed wing of the (secular) Fatah party of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, claimed responsibility for the attack. And two Palestinians, living in the village of Kfar Dan and suspected by the Israeli army of being involved in this attack, were killed the same day in exchanges of fire in Jalameh.
The Israeli army regularly destroys the residences of Palestinians whom it believes are responsible for attacks on Israelis in order – according to it – to discourage them from perpetrating violence.
The policy, however, is described as “collective punishment” by human rights organizations who believe it deprives family members not implicated in the assaults of their homes.
Monday’s operation is the first of the fatal year 2023 for Palestinians in the West Bank, Palestinian territory occupied since 1967 by Israeli forces, and comes after a year of high tensions.
In the wake of a series of anti-Israeli attacks last spring, the Israeli army has stepped up its operations in the occupied West Bank.
According to the UN, more than 150 Palestinians were killed last year in Israeli operations or clashes with Israeli forces in 2022, the heaviest toll since the end of the Second Intifada, a Palestinian uprising in the early 2000s.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s new government, one of the most right-wing in Israel’s history, has raised fears of a military escalation in the West Bank.
Two of Netanyahu’s far-right coalition partners, who were sworn in last Thursday along with the rest of the new government, will take on sensitive portfolios relating to Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.