AQABAT JABR REFUGEE CAMP, West Bank (AP) – Israeli forces stormed a refugee camp near the Palestinian city of Jericho on Saturday, besieging houses allegedly used as hiding places for Palestinian attackers and firing at residents. fired at. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, in the fighting he injured six Palestinians, two of whom were seriously injured. Rocked a generally quiet oasis town with less violence than other towns on the West Bank.
The military said it had entered the Aqabat Jabr refugee camp, southwest of Jericho in the occupied West Bank, to search for suspects involved in a shooting attack on a nearby Israeli settlement last week.
Last Saturday, as the West Bank was nervous after the worst Israeli military offensive in 20 years, followed by two Palestinian attacks in East Jerusalem that left seven dead, the military said Palestinians Gunmen set fire to a restaurant in the settlement near Jericho, he said. The gunman fled the scene after firing a bullet, the Army said. No one was injured.
The military said several Palestinians, with the help of their families, had been holed up in their homes after the shooting and were planning future attacks.
Military bulldozers scraped down the walls of houses and Israeli commanders shouted threats through loudspeakers to force the refugees to surrender. Camp residents reported receiving text messages urging families to keep their children indoors and avoid clashes with Israeli forces.
The military said the suspect and his family had fallen out of one of their homes and turned themselves in. Security forces destroyed most of the house, leaving piles of rubble and twisted metal. Palestinian protesters threw stones and Molotov cocktails at military jeeps as they rumbling through the streets of the camp, and some gunmen opened fire. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, Israeli forces counterattacked, injuring six people, but none fatally.
The incursions come as violence mounts in East Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank under Israel’s new far-right government, which has taken a belligerent stance against the Palestinians. Israel conquered the West Bank along with East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Middle East War. Palestinians are seeking these areas for their desired independent state.
Israeli forces have stepped up night raids in the occupied West Bank since a series of deadly Palestinian attacks in Israel last spring. remained a sort of sleepy desert town that had escaped much of the
Israeli forces have blocked access to several roads to Jericho since last week’s shootout in a nearby settlement. This put the city in a semi-lockdown, disrupting business activities and causing him an hour-long bottleneck at the checkpoint. .. Palestinian security forces, the footage showed.
Palestinian authorities have announced that they are ending security coordination with Israel in retaliation for last week’s attack on the Jenin refugee camp that killed 10 Palestinians. Nearly 150 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank and East Jerusalem last year, the highest death toll in those areas since 2004, according to figures from the Israeli rights group Betzelem. In 2022, about 30 people were killed by Palestinians in Israel.
The Israeli military says most of the Palestinians killed were militants. However, young people throwing stones in protest at the attack and other people not involved in the clashes were also killed.
