Three Palestinian Hamas fighters, accused of having shot and killed three Israeli-British soldiers in April, were shot dead Thursday by Israeli forces during an incursion into Nablus, in the north of the occupied West Bank.
The Palestinian Health Ministry identified them as Hassan Qatnani, 35, Moaz Masri, 35, and Ibrahim Jouri, 45. The Islamist movement Hamas said in a statement that they were members of its armed wing.
Qatnani and Masri “murdered Léa (Lucy), Maia and Rina Dee on April 7 in a shooting attack near Hamra”, in the West Bank, said Shin Beth, the Israeli internal security service.
They were killed “during a joint operation by Shin Beth, the army and the police,” the source added in a statement, adding that an accomplice had also been killed in the exchange of fire.
“For an hour and a half, I heard explosions and gunshots,” Reda Abou Dhair, 52, told AFP, a witness who saw smoke billowing from the house after the raid. house where the three men were hiding and whose roof was destroyed, in the Old City of Nablus.
Clashes broke out on the sidelines of the Israeli operation, young Palestinians throwing stones at military vehicles, AFP journalists noted.
According to the armed group “The Den of the Lions”, based in Nablus, its fighters also took part in the clashes.
Thousands of people, including hooded gunmen, then attended the funeral of the three fighters in Nablus, during which Palestinian, Hamas and Fatah party flags were waved, noted an AFP journalist.
Abdelatif al-Qanou, a spokesman for Hamas, an organization in power in the Gaza Strip but also active in the West Bank, assured that “the resistance will proceed (it) with determination” to “avenge the blood of the martyrs”.
Lucy Dee, 48, and her daughters Rina and Maia, aged 16 and 20, residents of the Israeli settlement of Efrat, near Bethlehem, were shot dead in the northern West Bank on April 7.
The Israeli operation “was carried out in a way that did not endanger the lives of either Israeli soldiers or Palestinian civilians,” Leo Dee, husband of Lucy and father of Rina and Maia, said in a statement Thursday. calling himself “comforted”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also reacted, referring in a statement to “a message to those who attack us and want to attack us”. “No matter where you try to hide, we will find you,” he said.
Bastion of armed groups, the northern West Bank, Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967, has been the scene of violence for more than a year.
On Thursday, in the town of Huwara, south of Nablus, a 26-year-old Palestinian woman who stabbed an Israeli soldier was shot dead. The 20-year-old soldier was hospitalized and his life is not in danger, according to the emergency services.
And on February 22, 11 Palestinians including fighters were killed and more than 80 people were shot and wounded in an Israeli raid in Nablus, the deadliest since 2005.
The developments come after an outbreak of violence earlier this week between armed groups in the Gaza Strip and Israel, following the death of a Palestinian Islamic Jihad official who was on hunger strike in an Israeli prison.
A Palestinian died in Gaza, before a truce was announced by the armed Islamic Jihad movement and Egypt, a traditional mediator. Israel did not comment.
The number of Palestinians killed since the start of the year now stands at 106. Nineteen Israelis, one Ukrainian and one Italian have been killed in the same period, according to an AFP count compiled from official Israeli and Palestinian sources.
These statistics include, on the Palestinian side, combatants and civilians, including minors, and on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, including minors, and three members of the Arab minority.
scholarship-cgo/gk/all
04/05/2023 16:51:45 – Nablus (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
