The Israeli army says “gunners opened fire” on an army position west of Nablus, to which their soldiers responded with “live fire”.
The Israeli army says its troops shot dead three Palestinian men who opened fire on soldiers in the occupied West Bank, the latest bloodshed in a years-long wave of violence in the region.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said the men were killed by Israeli fire near the town of Nablus on Sunday and identified them as Jihad Mohammed al-Shami, 24, Uday Othman al-Shami, 22, and Mohammed Raed Dabeek, 18.
The Israeli army said gunmen “opened fire” on an army position near the Jit crossing west of Nablus, to which the soldiers responded with “live fire”.
“Three gunmen were neutralized during the firefight and an additional gunman surrendered to the armed forces,” the army said in a statement, noting that none of the Israeli soldiers were injured.
The soldiers, members of the elite infantry reconnaissance unit Golani, seized three M-16 rifles and a handgun used by the Palestinians, the army said.
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, an armed offshoot of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party, claimed the men killed as members.
Ongoing violence
Tensions between Israeli troops and settlers on the one hand and Palestinians on the other have escalated over the past year.
Israeli forces have arrested thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank and killed more than 200 Palestinians, both civilians and combatants. More than 40 Israelis and foreigners have been killed in attacks by Palestinians during the same period.
On Friday, an Israeli settler shot dead a Palestinian man near an illegal settlement in the northern occupied West Bank.
A day earlier, a Hamas gunman opened fire in Tel Aviv, wounding three people, one of them critically, before being killed by police and passersby. The group said the attack was in response to an Israeli strike that killed three Palestinian fighters in the West Bank earlier that day.
Israeli raids have become deadlier this year since a new far-right government came to power, empowering settler groups in the occupied West Bank, which recently swept through the town of Huwara in an attack that has been labeled a “pogrom.”
Israeli settlements, illegal under international law, are home to between 600,000 and 750,000 Israeli settlers scattered across the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, despite Palestinians seeking the land as part of a future state.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin expressed concern about Jewish settler violence against Palestinians during a visit to Israel on Thursday.
At a joint press conference with his Israeli counterpart Yoav Galant, Austin said Washington’s commitment to Israel’s security was “iron strong” but warned against actions that could lead to increased insecurity.
(TagsToTranslate)News
