ISRAEL: Palestinian officials say that a raid by the Israeli army on the city of Jenin in the occupied West Bank killed at least six Palestinians and hurt ten others. This latest bloody event is part of a new wave of violence that has spread across Israel and the Palestinian territories.
After the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched an operation to find the Palestinian shooter suspected of killing two Israeli brothers as they drove through the West Bank town of Huwara last week, a fierce gun battle broke out in the crowded refugee camp on Jenin’s western outskirts on Tuesday afternoon.
On the outskirts of the Jenin camp on Tuesday afternoon, machine gun fire and the boom of explosives could be heard as at least seven drones circled the airspace above. The fighting stopped at a wedding reception, so the kids who were there ran outside to count the drones.
The Palestinian Red Crescent posted a video of an ambulance with bullet holes in the side, and witnesses claimed that this prevented medical personnel from getting to the wounded. Requests for feedback from an IDF spokesperson did not immediately elicit a response.
Abd al-Fattah Hussein Ibrahim Gharusha, a 49-year-old Hamas member, was identified as the suspect in the Huwara attack by the Israeli army later on Tuesday. They added that he had been “neutralized” in the raid and that two of his sons had been detained in a separate operation in the neighboring city of Nablus. Just after dusk, large funeral processions for the deceased began in the center of Jenin.
The IDF surrounded a house in the camp and fired shoulder-launched missiles at it, prompting the Jenin Brigade, a loosely organized armed group based there, to open fire and hurl explosive devices, the group claimed on Telegram. They claimed to have injured several troops while shooting down two Israeli drones. According to the IDF, it was informed of those reports.
The army said that its campaign in the West Bank, which has been going on for a year, is aimed at militants who are planning attacks on Jews. However, the number of people killed in the occupied territory has reached its highest level in years. Tuesday’s raid is part of this campaign. The violence has been concentrated in Jenin and Nablus, and attacks during the day, which were previously unusual, seem to be becoming more frequent.
Human rights groups and news organisations have counted that Israeli fire has killed at least 70 Palestinians so far this year. About half of those killed were people who were fighting.14 Israelis have been slain in “lone wolf” attacks by the Palestinians, all but one of them civilians.
The recent election of the most right-wing government in Israel’s history, which has made no secret of its plans to fully annex the West Bank and change the status quo on Jerusalem’s holy Temple Mount complex, which Muslims call Haram al-Sherif, has made people more worried about a return to full-blown conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.
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