Palestinians killed in Israeli arrest raids
Israeli army shoots dead two Palestinian men in separate raids in Jenin and Qalqilya in the occupied West Bank.
The Israeli army has shot dead two Palestinian men in separate raids in a town and a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, sources on both sides said.
One of the victims, a member of the Palestinian security forces, was killed during an overnight arrest raid early on Thursday in the northern town of Qalqilya.
“During an ambush organised to arrest an armed man… who had fired on Israeli soldiers several times in recent weeks, the man opened fire on soldiers, who fired back,” the Israeli army said.
“We later learnt that he had been killed.”
Palestinian security sources identified the dead man as intelligence officer Saleh Yasin, 29.
He was on his way home when he was ambushed by the Israeli soldiers, the sources said.
Another Palestinian was shot dead by the Israeli army, and several others wounded, in clashes that erupted after a similar arrest operation in Jenin refugee camp, also in the northern West Bank, on Wednesday evening, sources on both sides said.
Palestinian security sources named the man killed in that exchange as Nafaa al-Saedi, 23, of the Islamic Jihad movement.
According to the director of the Palestinian emergency medical services in Jenin, clashes erupted after Israeli forces entered the refugee camp, and six casualties were taken to a Jenin hospital.
He said another Palestinian, who was seriously wounded, was still being held by Israel.
Palestinian security sources told AFP news agency the soldiers had arrived to arrest Saedi and another Palestinian, 21-year-old Ali Qassem al-Saedi, who were at the home of a Hamas leader who had been arrested by Israel.
Following the incident “approximately 100 Palestinians violently attacked the security forces by hurling rocks”, the Israeli army said in its statement.
The deaths brought to 28 the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces this year, the great majority of them in the West Bank, according to an AFP tally.
On December 7, troops shot dead a 15-year-old Palestinian during a clash in Jalazoun refugee camp near the West Bank city of Ramallah.