6 injured as Israeli army raids refugee camp
WEST BANK: The Israeli army raided a refugee camp near the Palestinian city of Jericho on Saturday, besieging houses it said were being used as hideouts for atackers and shooting at residents who opened fire.
The fighting wounded six Palestinians, two seriously, said the Palestinian Health Ministry, and jolted a generally quiet oasis town that has seen less violence than other West Bank cities.
The army said it entered the Aqabat Jabr refugee camp southwest of Jericho in the occupied West Bank to search for suspects involved in a shooting atack last week at a nearby Israeli setlement.
Last Saturday, with the West Bank on edge ater the deadliest Israeli military raid in two decades and two subsequent atacks in east Jerusalem that killed seven people, the army said a gunman had opened fire in a restaurant at a setlement near Jericho. Ater firing one bullet, the gunman fled the scene, the army said. No one was wounded.
The army said several Palestinians had holed up in their homes ater the shooting with the help of family and were planning future atacks.
To force the fugitives to surrender, a military bulldozer clawed at the walls of one of the homes as an Israeli commander shouted threats over a loudspeaker.
Camp residents reported receiving text messages urging families to keep their children inside and avoid clashing with Israeli troops.
The suspects and family members trickled out of one of the homes and turned themselves in, the military said.
Security forces had levelled much of the house, leaving a pile of rubble and twisted metal.
Palestinian protesters threw rocks and Molotov cocktails at military jeeps as they rumbled down the camp streets, while some gunmen opened fire.
The Israeli military fired back, wounding six, none critically, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.
The incursion comes as violence rises in east Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank under Israel’s new far-right government, which has taken a combative stance against the Palestinians.
Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. The Palestinians seek those territories for their hoped-for independent state.
The Israeli army has ramped up near-nightly raids in the occupied West Bank since a series of deadly atacks within Israel last spring.