After a series of deadly anti-Israeli attacks in recent weeks, the Israeli army on Monday launched new operations across the occupied West Bank, Palestinian territory where security incidents are increasing.
While Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said on Sunday that the Israeli army was “on the offensive”, security forces have concentrated their activities in recent days in the northern West Bank near the city of Jenin, where two Palestinians who recently carried out attacks in Israel were from.
On Monday, the army carried out an operation in the village of Kafr Qalil (north) during which clashes broke out with “rioters”, she said in a statement.
They “burned tires and threw stones at the soldiers. Gunshots were heard,” she said, adding that no soldier was injured.
According to the Palestinian Red Crescent, 24 people were injured on Monday in the northern West Bank, including one with live ammunition.
Other Israeli operations were carried out in Burqa, al-Aroub and Hebron, further south in the West Bank, Palestinian territory occupied since 1967 by the Israeli army.
Palestinians carry a wounded man after an Israeli army operation in the Nour Chams refugee camp near the northern West Bank city of Tulkarem on April 10, 2022 / AFP
In all, 13 people were arrested Monday and 30 in a week in the West Bank, according to the army, which said that 16 attacks had been thwarted in recent days.
Israel has been hit since March 22 by four attacks, the first two perpetrated by Israeli Arabs linked to the jihadist organization Islamic State (IS) and the last two by Palestinians from the Jenin sector. These attacks resulted in a total of 14 deaths.
– “Mobilization” –
According to an AFP tally, fourteen Palestinians, including assailants, have been killed in violence since March 22.
The latest, 17-year-old Mohamed Zakarneh, died on Monday after being injured the day before by Israeli bullets in Jenin, the Palestinian health ministry said.
The funeral of Palestinian Mohamed Zakarneh, 17, on April 11, 2022 in Jenin, West Bank / AFP
Thousands of people attended his funeral in the Jenin refugee camp on Monday, including armed and hooded men shooting in the air, AFP journalists noted.
He was injured in exchanges of fire during an Israeli operation which aimed to apprehend relatives of the assailant of the attack carried out Thursday in Tel Aviv, which claimed the lives of three Israelis.
On Sunday, the Israeli army said it opened fire on a vehicle in which two of the assailant’s brothers were traveling. And an Israeli security source told AFP that the security forces asked his father to surrender, threatening to raid the camp again if necessary.
Spokesman for Jenin’s armed Palestinian factions, Abu Mouadh, said on Sunday the camp was on “high alert” and called on local fighters for “general mobilization”.
Strikes are also organized in Jenin and Bethlehem, further south in the West Bank, where two Palestinians were killed in separate incidents.
After deadly anti-Israeli attacks almost 20 years ago to the day, the Israeli army launched a full-scale offensive in Jenin, in which 53 Palestinians, more than half civilians, and 23 Israeli soldiers had been killed in ten days of intense fighting.
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