The Israeli army has stormed the occupied West Bank city of Jenin, killing at least six Palestinians and wounding 10 others, according to Palestine’s health officials.
The Palestine’s Health Ministry on Tuesday identified one of the fatalities as 26-year-old Mohammed Ghazawi. The ministry later announced five other Palestinians were shot and killed, without giving further details.
At least 26 Palestinians were also wounded during the raid, the ministry said, three of them seriously. The Israeli army said two of its soldiers were lightly wounded.
Israel said that among those who were killed was an alleged suspect accused of killing two Israelis in the northern West Bank town of Huwara last week.
The raid was the latest in a string of deadly violence by the Israeli military in the northern West Bank. Last month, a rare daytime military raid in the Old City of Nablus left 11 Palestinians dead.
Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesperson for Palestine’s President Mahmud Abbas, called the use of rockets in the Jenin an act of “all-out war”, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.
Turkish Foreign Ministry published a statement saying it “strongly condemns” Israeli forces and illegal settlers over the increasing violence and attacks in the occupied West Bank.
Huwara attack
Witnesses said Israeli troops entered the camp and surrounded a house as a group of Palestinians fought back, with the army reporting “explosive devices and blocks” were hurled at their soldiers.
Earlier, illegal Israeli settlers also attacked Palestinians in Huwara.
Israeli army and border police forces dispersed crowds of illegal settlers of
what the military described as “a number of violent riots” in
Huwara during the overnight attack on Monday.
Videos shared on social media showed a group of
black-clad youths attacking a Palestinian car before its driver
manages to pull away.
“They were shooting at us with live ammunition. God helped
us,” said Omar Khalifa, who had just finished shopping at a
supermarket and had got into the car with his family when the
attack took place.
“My wife was sitting in the back and she hugged our daughter to cover her. We could have lost her, there was real danger to our lives.”
Other footage appeared to show Israeli soldiers dancing together with illegal Jewish settlers in the town on what was the Jewish festival of Purim.
“Huwara has been conquered, gentlemen!,” a voice is heard saying in Hebrew.
READ MORE: Palestinians turn to night patrols to stave off attacks by Israeli settlers
‘Hooligan settlers’
The
clashes in Huwara have further exposed political fault lines in Israel
that have already been deepened by a bitter battle over an
overhaul of the justice system being pushed by Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government.
“A group of hooligan settlers, in the middle of the
Purim holiday, went to attack innocent passers-by in the village
of Huwara,” the leader of the centre-left opposition Labour
Party Merav Michaeli said on Twitter.
“This is not ‘youth at the margins’ — this is the
mainstream, supported by key members of the current government,”
she added.
“Both of them are destroying Israel.”
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken overnight reiterated
calls for both sides to de-escalate tensions in the occupied West Bank,
where Israeli forces have killed more than 74 Palestinians this year.
In the same period, Palestinians have killed 14 Israelis and one Ukrainian woman in a series of apparently uncoordinated attacks by individuals.
READ MORE: US blasts Israeli minister over call to ‘erase’ village in Palestine
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