Four Palestinians, including a teenager and fighters, were killed by Israeli fire on Thursday in Jenin, in the northern occupied West Bank, where the Israeli army said it had "neutralized" two suspects wanted for "terrorist activities".
During this incursion into the so-called autonomous Palestinian area under the Israeli-Palestinian peace accords of Oslo (1993), four Palestinians were killed, said the Palestinian Ministry of Health which identified Omar Awadin, 16, Nidal Khazim, 28, Youssef Chrim, 29, and Louay Sghir, 37.
The armed wing of Hamas, the ruling Islamist movement in the Gaza Strip, said Youssef Chrim was one of its leaders in Jenin.
Nidal Khazim was a member of the al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of Islamic Jihad, according to this radical Palestinian organization.
Twenty-three injured people were also hospitalized, five of them in serious condition, the ministry added.
Mahmoud al-Saadi, of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society in Jenin, told AFP that a unit of commandos dressed in civilian clothes had burst into downtown Jenin.
Asked by AFP, an Israeli army spokesman confirmed that the aim of the raid was to apprehend Chrim and Khazim and claimed that the Israeli forces only opened fire in response to fire on them. they.
A joint statement from the Israeli army, Homeland Security and border guards said Israeli forces "neutralized" the two men.
"Another suspect was neutralized after attempting to attack the forces with a crowbar," the text added, adding that no soldiers were injured in the operation.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict seems to be sucked into a new inextricable spiral of violence since the entry into office at the end of December of one of the most right-wing governments in the history of Israel, under the leadership of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Stéphane Dujarric, spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, called the events in Jenin "a new example of a worrying cycle of violence" and said it was "a new reason for the international community is stepping up its efforts" to put an end to it.
In the West Bank, the violence is concentrated in the northern part of this territory, a stronghold of armed groups where the Israeli army has been multiplying for a year what it presents as "anti-terrorist operations" in the Palestinian autonomous zone, where Israel accuses preventive security Palestinian not to fight against the armed groups.
Armed attacks targeting Israelis took place in East Jerusalem, annexed and occupied by Israel, but also against settlements in the West Bank, as well as in Tel Aviv.
On Wednesday, the Israeli army announced that it had killed two days earlier a "terrorist" who was wearing an explosive belt and who is suspected of having infiltrated from Lebanon. She mentioned a possible involvement of the Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah.
Late Thursday afternoon, armed men attended the funeral of the four men killed in Jenin, an AFP journalist noted.
Hamas has promised that the "crime" in Jenin will "not go unanswered" and Islamic Jihad has assured that Israel "will pay the price for these crimes".
"These persistent Israeli aggressions confirm that Israel has no intention of calming the situation and preventing an eruption," said the spokesman for the Palestinian presidency, Nabil Abou Roudeina.
Since the beginning of the year, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has claimed the lives of 85 Palestinians (including members of armed groups and civilians, including minors), 12 civilians (including three minors) and one Israeli policeman, as well than a Ukrainian, according to an AFP tally compiled from official Israeli and Palestinian sources.
A meeting on the conflict is organized Sunday in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, with five countries, said Thursday the Minister of Palestinian Civil Affairs, Hussein el-Sheikh, without further details.
03/17/2023 11:43:46 - Jenin (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) - © 2023 AFP
