Al-Jazeera / August 6, 2023
Soldiers opened fire on a vehicle near the Jenin refugee camp, killing three passengers who the Israeli army alleged they were planning an attack.
Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank have shot dead three Palestinians who the army alleged were on their way to carry out an attack.
Soldiers opened fire on Sunday on a vehicle and killed three passengers, an army statement said.
“A short time ago, a vehicle carrying a squad of terrorists from the Jenin refugee camp was identified while on its way to carry out an attack,” it said.
The dead included Naif Abu Tsuik, 26, who the army said was a “leading military operative” from the Jenin refugee camp.
The army said that he was “involved in military action against Israeli security forces and advancing military activity directed by terrorists in the Gaza Strip”, the coastal enclave controlled by the group Hamas.
According to the Quds News Network, the vehicle was hit with more than 100 bullets.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the security forces and said Israel “will continue to act against those who seek our lives anywhere and at any time”.
Hazem Qasem, a Hamas Gaza spokesman, said the deaths would not go unpunished.
“The enemy, which assassinated three of our Palestinian people, will not escape paying the price of its crimes,” he said in a statement.
Reporting from occupied East Jerusalem, Al-Jazeera’s Mohammed Jamjoom said the Palestinian health ministry confirmed the deaths in the attack south of Jenin.
“The Israeli army said it also found an M-16 [assault weapon] in the vehicle,” said Jamjoom.
“This is all adding to a lot of tension here. It comes 24 hours after an attack that occurred in Tel Aviv, in which a young Palestinian man from Jenin was shooting at people. This is adding to a lot of concern to what this could mean in the days ahead.”
Mustafa Barghouti, head of the Palestinian National Initiative party, said that the killing of the three Palestinians amounts to an “extrajudicial killing.”
“What Israel did today is another act of extrajudicial killing of Palestinian young people,” Barghouti told Al-Jazeera. “It’s unlawful execution of people without any kind of judiciary process.”
Deadliest year
More than 200 Palestinians have been killed this year in the occupied Palestinian territories and the UN has warned that 2023 is on track to be the deadliest year for Palestinians since it started recording fatalities.
Barghouti said these killings are a “war of terror” against the Palestinian civil population, that will continue so long as the Israeli occupation continues.
“Occupation has been there for 56 years, ethnic cleansing of Palestinians is there since 75 years, and without ending these two processes, of course, there will never be peace in this region,” he said.
Jenin has been a flashpoint and the scene of numerous Israeli raids – many deadly – during the past few months. The largest Israeli raid of the camp in nearly 20 years took place in June, killing 12 Palestinians and forcing thousands to flee their homes.
On Saturday, August 5, Kamel Abu Bakr, from Jenin, opened fire in central Tel Aviv and killed an Israeli police inspector before he was shot dead by a responding officer.
Earlier this week, a settler rampage in the occupied West Bank killed 19-year-old Palestinian Qusai Jamal Maatan, while Israeli soldiers shot dead another young Palestinian, 18-year-old Mahmoud Abu Sa’an, during one of their daily pre-dawn raids in the occupied West Bank.
The settler attack, Barghouti said, was carried out by a man who serves in the Israeli government.
The political leader added that what this says about the relationship between settlers and Israel’s current far-right government, therefore, is that “this Israeli government is a fascist government.”
SOURCE: AL-JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES
________
Israeli forces kill three Palestinians in West Bank
Soraya Ebrahimi
The National / August 7, 2023
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praises troops for killing militants.
Three Palestinian militants were killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank on Sunday, the army said, in the latest deaths of a surge in violence rocking the occupied territory.
Troops “operated to prevent an immediate threat” the army said, describing one of the dead as a “leading military operative” from the Jenin refugee camp, a militant stronghold in the northern West Bank.
The West Bank has had a string of attacks by Palestinians on Israeli targets since early last year, as well as violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinian communities and repeated Israeli army raids.
The army on Sunday said that “a vehicle carrying a squad of terrorists from the Jenin refugee camp was identified while on its way to carry out an attack”.
Soldiers opened fire and killed three passengers, the statement said, including suspected squad leader Nayef Abu Swiess, 26.
The Palestinian Health Ministry confirmed the deaths of three “young men by occupation [Israeli] bullets” in the incident near the town of Arraba in the Jenin area.
The deputy governor of Jenin, Kamal Abu al-Roub, told AFP the Israeli army had “taken the car and the bodies”.
“The car had an Israeli licence plate,” Al-Roub said.
Abu Swiess, according to the army, was “involved in military action against Israeli security forces and advancing military activity directed by terrorists in the Gaza Strip”, the coastal enclave controlled by Palestinian militant group Hamas.
Mourners later lay flowers at the site where the Palestinians were killed on Sunday, AFP reported.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the troops for killing the militants who he said were on their way “to attack Israeli citizens”.
“We will continue to take action, everywhere and at any moment, against those who seek to attack us,” Netanyahu said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad pledged to respond to the latest deaths.
“The enemy will soon see that its foolish actions and terror will be met with a strong response by the resistance,” it said in a statement.
Hamas said in a statement: “Our Palestinian people and their courageous resistance will not let the occupation’s aggression pass without a price.”
Jenin refugee camp, one of the most crowded and impoverished in the West Bank, has become synonymous with Palestinian militancy and resistance against Israel.
In recent years it has been the site of fierce fighting between Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups.
Over the past 18 months, the security situation in the camp has deteriorated with repeated Israeli raids which security forces say are to pursue militants.
In July, the Israeli army carried out its biggest operation there in years, which killed 12 Palestinians, including children and militants.
One Israeli soldier was also killed in the two-day operation.
The camp was established in 1953 to house some of those among the 760,000 Palestinians who fled or were expelled from their homes during what Palestinian call the Nakba, or “Catastrophe”, the 1948 purge that coincided with Israel’s creation.
Today about 18,000 people live in the camp.
Sunday’s deaths are the latest in a surge of bloodshed to hit the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
On Friday, Qusai Jamal Maatan, 19, was shot dead in Burqah, east of Ramallah, as armed settlers clashed with Palestinian villagers.
A day later, a Palestinian gunman killed an Israeli municipal officer in Tel Aviv, before being fatally shot by another officer.
Violence this year linked to the conflict has killed at least 211 Palestinians, 28 Israelis, one Ukrainian and one Italian, according to an AFP tally.
They include, on the Palestinian side, combatants as well as civilians and, on the Israeli side, three members of the Arab minority.
Excluding annexed East Jerusalem, the West Bank is home to nearly three million Palestinians and about 490,000 Israelis who live in settlements considered to be illegal under international law.
Soraya Ebrahimi – Homepage Editor
