One Palestinian killed and seven wounded in Israeli raid on Jenin

One Palestinian was killed and seven wounded in a raid yesterday by Israeli troops in the ocupied West Bank city of Jenin.

At least two people were arrested, Palestinian state news agency Wafa reported, quoting security sources.

“The city was raided from several locations and snipers were also present on a number of building rooftops surrounding Jenin government hospital,” Wafa reported. Two ambulances were rammed by Israeli vehicles, preventing them from reaching the wounded, the news agency said.

The Israeli army has not yet commented on the incident.

Several security incidents occurred at the weekend, following a relative lull, after Gaza-militant group Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Israel launched retaliatory strikes for five days this month.

On Sunday, Israel’s military said it shot a suspect who was “attempting to place an explosive device” along a road in the West Bank. Earlier in the day, shots were fired at the Israeli town of Gan Ner, north of Jenin.

Shots were also fired at the Israeli settlement of Mevo Dotan in the West Bank. No injuries were reported.

In a sign of escalating tensions, panic erupted on a busy street in Tel Aviv on Sunday after a woman reacted to seeing a cockroach in a restaurant, which was mistaken for a terrorist attack.

The stampede took place on the same street that was the site of an attack outside a cafe in March that killed one. The incidents came as the Syrian Ministry of Defence said Israeli missiles hit Damascus on Sunday night, causing material damage in the city.

The aerial attack by “the Israeli enemy” began at about 11.45pm local time, it said.

Air defences shot down some of the missiles, state news agency Sana reported.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based opposition war monitor, said ambulances moved wounded people to hospitals.

The observatory said the attack was the 17th by Israel on Syrian territory this year. Israel, as is customary, has not commented on the strikes, although the country’s Defence Minister said last week that Israeli strikes in Syria on Iranian targets have doubled since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government came into office in December.

This month, Israel hit a key international airport in the northern city of Aleppo.

The attack left seven dead, including a Syrian soldier, and put the airport out of commission, state media reported at the time.