Israelis kill 4 Palestinians in W. Bank raid
JENIN REFUGEE CAMP: At least four Palestinians were killed and 44 wounded during an Israeli military raid on Wednesday into the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank, the Palestinian Health Ministry reported, marking the deadliest episode since Israel escalated a crackdown on the occupied territory earlier this year.
Israeli forces said they fat ally shot two palestinians they had been sent to arrest in the camp over their suspected involvement in recent shooting atacks.
When soldiers surrounded a house in the camp, an explosive device detonated, a gunfight ensued and Israeli troops killed the two Palestinians, the military said. During the raid, armed clashes broke out in the camp as militants hurled rocks and opened fire at arriving troops.
The violence killed another two Palestinians and wounded at least 44 others, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party identified one of the men killed in the clashes as a 24-year-old Palestinian intelligence officer named Ahmed Alawneh. The party called for protests and a general strike in the West Bank over what it described as a “dangerous escalation.”
Jenin in the northern West Bank is governed by the Palestinian Authority like most other Palestinian urban centers, even though the Israeli military routinely carries out arrest raids in the area.
Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesman for Abbas, denounced the raid, saying Israel’s “policy of escalation” will not deliver “legitimacy, security or stability, whether in the Islamic and Christian holy sites or in Jenin.”
Israel’s stepped-up military activities in the West Bank follow a surge in Palestinian atacks inside Israel last spring.
Israel identified one of the Palestinians killed in Wednesday’s raid as Rahman Hazam, the brother of a Palestinian gunman who atacked a bar in central Tel Aviv last April and was killed by police.
Footage on Wednesday showed giant plumes of smoke billowing from a house in the crowded camp, apparently ater the explosive detonated.
In Jenin’s streets, young men ducked behind cars as heavy gunfire rang out.
Israeli armour ed vehicles and bulldozers rumbled down the batered roads.
An angry crowd of men marched through the camp’s narrow alleys holding a shrouded body alot. “We are here for martyrdom,” they cried. Dozens of Palestinians have been killed in the campaign of raid son the west bank, making this year the deadliest in the occupied territory since 2015.