Shatha Hammad
Middle East Eye / September 28, 2022
Brother of man blamed for deadly attack in Tel Aviv earlier this year said to be among those killed.
Four Palestinians, including the brother of a man blamed for a deadly attack in Tel Aviv earlier this year, were killed on Wednesday during an Israeli raid in Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.
The Palestinian health ministry recorded four deaths during the raid in Jenin, including Abed Khazem, brother of Raad Khazem, named by Israel as the killer of three Israelis in a Tel Aviv shooting spree on 7 April.
The ministry said 44 Palestinians had also been wounded by live fire during the raid.
Earlier, the Israeli army said its troops had shot dead “two suspects involved in a number of recent shooting attacks”, confirming Abed as one of the men killed.
Palestinian sources told Middle East Eye that the Palestinian Authority had communicated with political figures in Jenin that it had received from Israel a list of 74 Palestinians wanted by the Israeli army, some of whom are on a kill list.
The director of Jenin Governmental Hospital, Wissam Abu Bakr, told MEE that two bodies of those killed arrived at the hospital, while the others were sent to Ibn Sina Hospital.
The Jenin hospital also received three injured people, whose condition was described as serious but in a stable condition. Bakr added that the deceased died as a result of being hit by direct bullets to their upper body.
The Palestinian health ministry said Abed and Mohammad Mahmoud Elwaneh were killed in a house that was under siege and shelled by the army.
Ahmad Nathmi Alawneh, 24, was reported to have been shot in the head and killed during street clashes with the soldiers. He was an officer in the Palestinian Authority’s Military Intelligence Service.
The fourth person killed was identified as Mohammad Abu Naaseh.
Security sources told MEE that a large force of Israeli troops had raided Jenin and its refugee camp, firing in all directions and shooting teargas canisters, before surrounding and shelling a house that belongs to Fathi Khazem, father of Raad and Abed. Israeli forces had been pursuing Abed and Fathi for months.
‘Resistance continues’
The Israeli army deployed a large force to Jenin camp on Wednesday, numbering about 20 military jeeps and a bulldozer, in addition to snipers on the roofs of buildings.
A number of Palestinians in the refugee camp confronted the Israeli forces with stones and homemade molotov cocktails.
Atta Abu Rumaila, a Fatah movement leader in Jenin camp, told MEE that the Israeli army surrounded and bombed the Khazem family house, before killing Abed and Elwaneh.
He added that the camp is “witnessing a state of intense anger”, as it mourns the four Palestinians killed today.
“The resistance continues and is getting stronger and stronger in Jenin camp and extends to the city and its countryside,” he told MEE.
“The Israeli occupation possesses all the military capabilities, but it does not possess the will of Jenin camp and its people. The camp was not defeated in the Al-Aqsa Intifada in 2022, it has not been defeated today either.”
Shatha Hammad is a Palestinian freelance journalist
