Two Palestinians were killed on Saturday, May 6, during an Israeli army raid in Tulkarem, in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry and the Israeli army each reported. The Tulkarem Brigade, a local group linked to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the armed wing of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party, claimed that the two men killed were two of its members, identified as Hamza Kharyoush and Samer El-Shafei.
The 22-year-olds died of gunshot wounds to the chest, neck and abdomen before their bodies were transferred "to the Thabet Thabet government hospital", the Palestinian ministry said.
Confirming the operation, the IDF claimed that "the two gunmen were targeted and killed as they sought to flee." The latter were, according to her, "involved in the shooting attack [on Tuesday] in Avnei Hefetz", a settlement in the West Bank, during which "an Israeli civilian was injured".
Escalation of tensions and violence since January
Two other people were arrested during the operation, while firearms and combat gear were also seized, the Israeli army said. A previous raid by the latter in the occupied West Bank on May 4 led to the deaths of three Palestinians in retaliation for the deaths of three Israeli women in April.
Israel and the Gaza Strip also exchanged fire earlier this week after the death of 45-year-old Palestinian Islamic Jihad activist Khader Adnan in the Israeli cell where he had been staying since his hunger strike began. started eighty-seven days earlier. Khader Adnan had been coming and going in Israeli prisons for a decade, starving himself to get out.
This renewed violence has been at work for several months in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. Since the beginning of the year, the number of Palestinians killed has risen to 108. Nineteen Israelis, a Ukrainian and an Italian were also killed during the same period, according to an Agence France-Presse tally compiled from official Israeli and Palestinian sources. These statistics include, on the Palestinian side, combatants and civilians, including minors, and on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, including minors, and three members of the Arab minority.
