At least four Palestinians were killed and around twenty others were injured in the early hours of today in raids by the Israeli army in the occupied West Bank, mainly in Nablus, a city where a newly formed armed organization operatesannounced the Ministry of Health of the Palestinian Authority.
“We have three dead and 19 wounded, among them three very seriously, from Israeli fire in Nablus,” the ministry said in a terse press release about the operation, which unfolded in the early hours of the morning in the city, according to eyewitnesses.
The ministry later reported another Palestinian killed by Israeli fire, this time in Ramallah, the seat of Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority in the central West Bank.
President Abbas, for his part, made “urgent contacts to end the attack on our people” in Nablus, his spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina said in a press release.
The Israeli army has confirmed that its forces are operating in Nablus. He did not comment on the account released by the Palestinian authorities, however he spoke of a large-scale operation, with the participation of the police and the intelligence service. against the “general headquarters and weapons manufacturing workshop” of a newly formed organization, called the “Lion’s Den”, in the old city of Nablus. During this operation, “several armed suspects were hit by bullets,” he limited himself to reporting.
In recent weeks, a group of young Palestinians — some belonging to established factions such as Fatah, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, others not — have been conducting anti-Israeli operations based in Nablus, a large city in the northern part of the occupied West Bank. West Bank of the Jordan River, as broadcast by international agencies and relayed by the Athens News Agency.
This group adopted the name Arin al-Usud (“Lion’s Den” in Arabic), in honor of Ibrahim al-Nablusi, a young fighter known by the nickname “The Lion of Nablus”, who was killed in early August by Israeli forces. It notably claimed responsibility for a deadly attack on an Israeli soldier two weeks ago in the occupied West Bank.
Palestinian Islamic Jihad announced that its “fighters” were “engaged in heavy clashes” with Israeli forces in Nablus and threatened Israel to retaliate for “crimes” by its armed forces in the city.
Escalation
The Israeli army has further tightened the cordon in Nablus, carrying out checks on everyone leaving the city and constantly monitoring it from the air with UAVs.
On the night of Saturday to Sunday, a member of the “Lion’s Den”, Tamer al-Kilani, was killed due to an “explosion” that his movement and a section of the Israeli press attributed to a bomb activated remotely by the Israeli military. The Israeli General Staff has not commented.
Violence has escalated in recent months in the northern part of the West Bank, Palestinian territory owned by the Jewish state since 1967, especially in the areas of the cities of Nablus and Jenin, strongholds of armed Palestinian organizations. The Israeli military has stepped up operations following a series of deadly anti-Israeli attacks since March.
His raids, during which clashes often break out with the Palestinian population, have a death toll of more than a hundred dead on the Palestinian side. It is the heaviest toll in the West Bank in about seven years, according to the UN.
Since the beginning of this month, at least 22 Palestinians and 2 Israeli soldiers have been killedaccording to an AFP tally based on rival announcements.
“War Crimes”
Meanwhile, human rights group Amnesty International today called for an investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC) into possible “war crimes” committed by the Israeli army and Palestinian fighters in the August hostilities in the Gaza Strip.
At least 49 Palestinians, fighters and civilians, including children, died between August 5 and 7 in hostilities between the Israeli army and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group in the Gaza Strip, an enclave under Israeli blockade since 2007 and it is separated, geographically and politically, from the West Bank.
Amnesty International estimated that a total of 31 civilians were killed, according to its briefing note released today, entitled “They were nothing but children: evidence of war crimes committed during Israel’s August 2022 offensive on the Gaza Strip.” ».
The NGO examined three incidents in particular, two attributed to the Israeli armed forces and one attributed to Palestinian armed organizations.
“The three deadly attacks we reviewed must be investigated as war crimes; all victims of the unlawful attacks and their families deserve justice and reparation,” said Amnesty International’s Secretary-General, Anies Kalamar.
Source: News Beast
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