RAMALLAH: Three Palestinian militants were shot and killed and eight people wounded during a dawn security raid by Israeli forces in the eastern neighborhood of Jenin on Friday.
Troops opened fire on a vehicle carrying the three victims, eyewitnesses told Arab News.
Those killed were named as Baraa Lahluh, 24, a field commander with the Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas; Youssef Salah, 23, from Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the military wing of the Fatah movement; and Laith Salah Abu Sorour, 24, from the military wing of the Islamic Jihad movement.
Mansour Al-Saadi, deputy governor of Jenin, told Arab News: “Reinforced Israeli forces stormed the area between 2:30 a.m. and 3 a.m. on Friday on the pretext of searching homes for weapons. But they fired heavily at the three young men who were inside the vehicle, which led to the deaths of all of them and the injury of eight innocent civilians who happened to be in the area.”
National and Islamic factions in Jenin called for a commercial strike in protest at the killings. The bodies of the three men were buried in the city of Jenin and its refugee camp on Friday afternoon.
Al-Saadi described the situation in Jenin in the wake of the Israeli raid as “difficult, tense and subject to escalation,” blaming Israel for the violence, which comes less than a month before US President Joe Biden visits Israel and the Palestinian territories.
The US administration recently urged Israel to avoid violent confrontations with the Palestinians until the end of the president’s visit to the region.
“But the Israeli occupation ascends as it wants, and chooses the time and place as it wants,” Al-Saadi told Arab News.
Israeli troops so far this year have killed 26 Palestinians from Jenin city and nearby areas, arrested 116 citizens and injured dozens while demolishing 11 homes in the city and its camp.
Jenin Gov. Maj. Gen. Akram Rajoub told Arab News: “This is the fourth time that the Israeli occupation army has stormed Jenin and its camp during the past three weeks, under the pretext of heading toward the house of Ra’ad Hazem, the perpetrator of the Tel Aviv attack last April.
“It has become clear that the Israeli government wants to export its internal political crisis by letting Jenin pay the price through the continuation of escalation to prolong the life of (Israeli premier) Naftali Bennett’s fragile coalition government.”
Condemning the killings, the Palestinian presidency said the Israeli government “bears responsibility for this dangerous escalation.”
It added: “This crime committed by the Israeli occupation forces comes before US President Joe Biden visits the region in an attempt to evade any political entitlement, and is considered the Israeli response to the demand of the US de-escalation.”
The presidency called on the US administration to take serious and effective action against the Israeli government to stop its “crimes and continuous aggression against the Palestinians before things get out of control.”
The Islamic Jihad said: “This crime reveals the ugliness and criminality of this occupation against our people and our resistance. The forces of our people and their resistance will continue in response to this heinous and brutal crime.”
The Fatah movement said that the international community’s silence on the issue “is considered an encouragement to commit more crimes against our people.”
Hamas vowed to respond to the Israeli raid, saying in a statement: “The cowardly assassinations will not pass without reckoning.”
Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh called on the global community to stop the “policy of double standards and work to protect the Palestinian people.”
Five people were wounded by rubber bullets and 15 hit by tear gas during clashes in Burin, south of Nablus, on Friday.
Ahmed Jibril, director of the emergency center in the Red Crescent in Nablus, said that Israeli armed forces assaulted an ambulance worker while he was treating one of the injured.
