Four people were shot dead Tuesday, June 20, in a “terrorist” attack near a Jewish settlement in the northern occupied West Bank, according to the Israeli army, the day after the death of six Palestinians during of an Israeli military raid in the area.
The identity of the attackers, most likely two Palestinians, as well as that of the victims, among whom, in all likelihood, Israelis, was not known at the start of the evening.
The Israeli army explained that assailants opened fire near a gas station near the settlement of Eli (north) and that it “neutralized” one of them without specifying whether he had been killed.
A joint statement from the internal security agency (Shabak), the army and the police then specified that the second assailant who fled had also been “neutralized” near Toubas, where the Ministry of Palestinian health reported the death of a Palestinian killed by “occupation bullets”.
Magen David Adom, the Israeli equivalent of the Red Cross, said four people were pronounced dead at the scene while four others were injured, including one in serious condition.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant will assess the situation later this afternoon in a meeting with Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi, director of Shabak, as well as other security officials, according to a press release from Mr. Galant’s office.
Operation over ten hours
The Israeli army met with strong resistance, and during the operation which lasted more than ten hours, missiles were fired by an Israeli helicopter, which had not happened for years, according to the army, in order to allow its troops to extricate themselves. More than 90 Palestinians were injured there and eight members of the Israeli security forces, according to Palestinian and Israeli sources.
The attack near Eli is “the answer to the crimes of the occupation [Israel], in the Jenin refugee camp, yesterday”, assured Hazem Qassem, the spokesman for the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, controlling the strip. from Gaza.
Tareq Selmi, spokesman for Islamic Jihad, saw it as “a heroic commando operation in the context of the legitimate right to self-defense”.
Israeli incursions into the northern West Bank, a stronghold of Palestinian armed groups, often degenerate into deadly clashes.
Since the beginning of the year, at least 166 Palestinians, 21 Israelis, a Ukrainian and an Italian have been killed in violence linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to an Agence France-Presse count compiled from official sources. Israelis and Palestinians before Eli’s attack.
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.
Apart from occupied and annexed East Jerusalem, nearly three million Palestinians live in the West Bank, Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967. About 490,000 Israelis also live there in settlements considered by the United Nations to be illegal under the law. international.