Palestine’s Health Ministry reported that Israeli forces killed three Palestinians in two separate incidents in the occupied West Bank. During the raids, Israeli troops said they were “being pelted with rocks” and opened fire on suspects who were fleeing.
According to the Palestine Health Ministry, Abdulhadi Nazal, 18, and Habib Kamil, 25, were killed by live Israeli bullets in the town of Qabatiya near the city of Jenin in the northern West Bank.
“The wanted suspect and an additional suspect fled the scene” during a raid to arrest a suspect in Qabatiya, according to the Israeli military.
The forces opened fire on them. “A hit on the additional suspect was identified, and the wanted suspect was apprehended,” the Israeli army stated in a statement.
According to the statement, Israeli soldiers shot two additional Palestinians during the subsequent gunfight and clashes.
The 2022 trend, which was the deadliest since UN records began in 2005, was continued by the uptick in violence in the West Bank.
The inauguration of the most right-wing government in Israel’s history, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, at the end of December has sparked concerns regarding an increase in military activity in the territory.
About 2.9 million Palestinians live in Israel’s 1967 Six-Day War-occupied West Bank. There are currently an estimated 500,000 illegal Jewish settlers living in West Bank communities that are prohibited by international law.
‘Don’t be afraid’
Samir Aouni Harbi Aslan, 41, was killed “by a bullet of the Israeli occupation army” in the Qalandia refugee camp near Ramallah, Palestine reported earlier in the day.
People had “hurled rocks and blocks from the rooftops aiming at soldiers operating beneath,” according to the Israeli military.
The Palestinian Prisoners’ Club, an advocacy group, reported that overnight raids across the West Bank resulted in the detention of 18 individuals.
Aslan was reportedly shot on the balcony of Azzam Abdel Qader’s home while his son was being held, according to a witness to the raid.
He told his son, “He yelled at the soldiers and said: “Don’t be afraid,” Qader advised the AFP news organization.
“After that, stones were being thrown at the occupation soldiers in the surrounding area, so the soldiers started shooting at random.”
For the funeral of Aslan, the third Palestinian killed in the West Bank in the past 24 hours, mourners gathered in Qalandia.
Nine Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since the beginning of the year, thanks to the deaths in Qabatia.
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More killings after deadly year
A 19-year-old Palestinian was shot and killed on Wednesday near a settlement in the southern West Bank.
The incident occurred after Israeli forces invaded the northern city of Nablus and killed a Palestinian fighter in a firefight.
Hundreds of mourners gathered in the city hours after another Israeli incursion for his funeral on Thursday.
During the raid, two Palestinian journalists were among the wounded.
An AFP count shows that at least 26 Israelis and 200 Palestinians were killed in an increase in violence in Israel and the occupied West Bank last year.
According to UN figures, the occupied West Bank was the location of more than 150 deaths.
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Source: TRT World