Three Palestinian men were killed during an Israeli military operation against suspected militants in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday morning, according to information from the Palestinian Health Ministry.
Among the dead is Ibrahim Al-Nabulsi, the apparent target of the Israeli attack. The other men killed were named by Palestinian Health Ministry officials such as Islam Sabbouh and Hussein Jamal Taha.
A statement by the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), an affiliation of smaller armed groups, hailed the deaths of the three men as a heroic act of resistance.
Although closely linked, the PRC is considered separate from the armed wings of Islamic Jihad militant groups (the Quds Brigades) and Hamas (the Qassam Brigades).
Israel has accused Al Nabulsi of involvement in a series of recent shootings against Israelis in the West Bank.
Israeli forces surrounded a building in Nablus’ old town on Tuesday before attacking it with a missile fired from the shoulder, an Israeli statement said, triggering an exchange of fire.
The Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group, said on Telegram that its members in Nablus were involved in “violent clashes with enemy special forces when they invaded the old city”.
About 40 people were injured, several in critical condition, in the violent exchanges, in addition to the three men killed, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
The deadly clashes appear to test the strength of a ceasefire restored to Gaza just over 24 hours ago, which ended two days of Israeli air strikes on Islamic Jihad targets and rockets fired at Israel. The truce in Gaza was still in effect on Tuesday.
An Islamic Jihad spokesman told CNN that Israel was arresting and killing without any responsibility.
“That’s why we decided to resist with our weapons. If we do not find weapons, we will resist with stones, but we will not give up,” said spokesman Daoud Shihab.
Tuesday’s attack comes on the heels of the worst hostilities between Israel and militants in Gaza in more than a year. On Friday, Israel launched what it called preemptive strikes against Islamic Jihad targets in the coastal enclave.
At least 44 Palestinian militants and civilians, including 15 children, were killed in the violence, according to Palestinian officials, before a ceasefire was agreed on Sunday night.
Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said on Monday that the operation “restored deterrence”.
“All our goals were achieved. The entire senior Islamic Jihad military command in Gaza was successfully targeted in three days,” he said.
The operation also affected the civilian population of Gaza. Israel and Egypt have imposed the closure of Gaza since 2007, limiting access to the territory by land, air and sea, including strict restrictions on the movement of residents and the flow of goods.
Gaza’s only power plant was forced to close on Saturday after it ran out of fuel, causing drastic cuts in electricity supplies to the territory’s two million residents. Fuel transport resumed on Monday through the Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom crossing for the first time in a week following the truce agreement.
Islamic Jihad, the smaller of the two main militant groups in Gaza, fired about 1,175 rockets at Israel during the escalation, according to Israeli data, mostly at Israeli communities near Gaza. The group also launched rockets towards Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
About 185 rockets landed inside Gaza, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Monday. The Iron Dome air defense system, which is deployed against any missile deemed to be a threat to people or buildings, and which intercepted rockets fired at Jerusalem, was operating with a 96% success rate, a spokesperson for the IDF on Monday.
A senior Israeli diplomatic official, speaking to reporters on Monday, appeared to acknowledge that Israel’s campaign may have been responsible for some civilian deaths as well as militants, saying initial assessments were that “the majority” of the victims civilians was the result of errant Islamic Jihad rockets. Civilian casualties have always been a tragedy, the official said.
In an incident on Saturday, four children were among seven people killed in an explosion in Jabaliya, northern Gaza. The Palestinian Health Ministry said the explosion was caused by an Israeli airstrike, but Israel rejected the claim, blaming the erroneous rocket fire.
The IDF released a video showing what it said was an Islamic Jihad rocket apparently suddenly losing power and crashing to the ground over a built-up area.
Source: CNN Brasil
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