Two Palestinians killed by Israelis after raid in refugee camp

ISRAEL’S military has carried out an arrest raid in the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank and killed two Palestinians in gun battles, according to Palestinian reports.

It was the latest bloodshed in what has become the deadliest year in the territory since 2015.

Palestinian militant groups claimed both the dead as members, though there were conflicting statements about the circumstances surrounding the death of one of them, a hospital doctor.

The Palestinian health ministry said Dr Abdullah al-Ahmed was on duty, attending to the wounded outside his hospital when he was shot.

The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, an armed offshoot of the secular Fatah party, claimed he was a member. In a post announcing his death, the group said he was killed “in an armed clash” with Israeli forces while he was “defending the homeland”. The poster showed him posing with two assault rifles.

The second man killed on Friday in the Jenin refugee camp was identified by the militant group Islamic

Jihad as a field commander. The camp is a stronghold of Islamic Jihad, a Fatah rival, and has been a frequent flash point for confrontations.

Five people were wounded in the fighting, including two paramedics as an ambulance was caught in the crossfire, the official Palestinian news agency, Wafa, reported.