Israeli forces shoot dead Hamas militant

Al-Fakih said was responsible for attack that killed rabbi Parents of soldiers killed protest

JERUSALEM, July 27, (Agencies): Israeli troops shot dead a Hamas fighter on Wednesday who the military said was responsible for an attack that killed a rabbi in a drive-by shooting in the occupied West Bank earlier this month.

The militant was killed in an overnight raid in the territory, during which residents of the Palestinian village of Surif, near the city of Hebron, reported lengthy exchanges of fire between Israeli forces and gunmen.

In a statement, the military said that security forces killed the man responsible for the July 1 attack that killed Rabbi Michael Mark. Mark was shot from a moving vehicle as he drove in his car.

Israeli forces also arrested three other militants.

Islamist group Hamas identified the man killed in the raid as Mohammad al-Fakih and it said he was a member of its armed wing, the al-Qassam Brigades. The house in which Fakih was hiding out was damaged during the fighting and then demolished by an Israeli bulldozer.

The military said soldiers surrounded the house where the Hamas member was hiding out and exchanged fire with him.

Afterwards, the house was struck with antitank missiles and the militant’s body was found inside. He was identified as Mohamed Fakih, 29, and Hamas hailed him as a “martyr”.

“After extensive research, we found the hideout of the terrorist who killed Michael Mark,” Colonel Roman Gofman, commander of the bri- JERUSALEM, July 27, (AFP): Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has defended his leadership in the build-up to the 2014 war in Gaza after protests by parents of soldiers killed.

Speaking at an event to mark two years since the conflict Tuesday, Netanyahu was heckled by two fathers of soldiers who accused him of seeking to monopolise power.

“I’m not willing as a bereaved father for you to undermine our democracy. I didn’t pay such a high price for that,” one said.

A number of parents of the 67 Israeli soldiers killed in the 2014 Gaza war with Hamas and other

gade that led the operation, said in a video distributed by the military.

“We besieged the house and exchanges of fire took place after he opened fire at the soldiers. We responded and the terrorist was killed in battle. His house was destroyed on him.”

Soldiers carried away Fakih’s body and arrested three people, who were led away with their eyes covered and loaded into military vehicles, an AFP photographer witnessed.

The official Palestinian news agency reported five people were arrested and said several villagers were injured, with Palestinian ambulances denied access to the site by Israeli soldiers.

factions have lent their support to calls for an independent inquiry into the conflict, with Netanyahu’s government accused of being unprepared for Hamas’s tunnels at the time.

Such tunnels were used in a number of surprise attacks.

Netanyahu has refused to sanction such an inquiry, but his office released a statement late Tuesday saying the army had been fully prepared.

“Claims that Israel was unprepared to meet the tunnel threat are without foundation,” the statement said, adding that the cabinet discussed the threat nine times in as many months before the conflict.

The Israeli army reported three arrests over the course of the investigation that began after the July 1 attack that killed the rabbi.

It called them part of a cell “affiliated with Hamas”, the Islamist movement that runs the Gaza Strip and which has a strong presence in parts of the West Bank, particularly Hebron.

The July 1 attack saw a car targeted by gunfire south of Hebron, leading to a crash that killed Mark and wounded three family members.

It was among a series of attacks in the Hebron area at the time, including a June 30 stabbing by a Palestinian in the Jewish settlement of Kiryat Arba that killed a 13-year-old girl.

A Palestinian girl photographs the rubble of a house, that was demolished by Israeli army bulldozers, in the village of Qalandia, next to Israel’s controversial separation barrier, between the Israeli

occupied West Bank town of Ramallah and East Jerusalem on July 26. (AFP)