Six Palestinians Killed In Israeli Raids On West Bank Refugee Camps

Illustration of Israeli police. (Wikimedia Commons/Obviously

JAKARTA - Israeli troops stormed a refugee camp in Jenin City, West Bank on Tuesday, killing at least six Palestinian gunmen, including a Hamas gunman who allegedly shot dead two brothers from a Jewish settlement near the village of Huwara.

Witnesses said fighting broke out after camp residents saw Israeli soldiers getting out of a furniture truck near a house on a hill overlooking the center of the sprawling camp and the fighters immediately opened fire.

In the ensuing firefight, Israeli forces surrounded a house where the suspected gunman had barricaded himself with other fighters, and used shoulder-fired missiles on the building, a statement from the military said.

The Palestinian health ministry said six Palestinians were killed and at least 16 injured. An Israeli police officer was injured and three others slightly injured, reported Reuters on March 8.

The military identified one of the gunmen as Abdel-Fattah Kharusha, a member of the Islamist group Hamas, who it said shot two Israelis as they sat in their car at a checkpoint near the Palestinian village of Huwara in the occupied West Bank on February 1. It said his two sons had been arrested in a raid around the same time in the city of Nablus, another center of militant activity.

According to statements by Hamas and Islamic Jihad, all those killed were gunmen from the militant groups Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Fatah.

"We call on the fighters of our people everywhere to step up armed resistance against the occupation and fight them anywhere on our occupied homelands," Hamas' armed wing said in a statement.

Hamas says Kharusha was a member and she carried out the double Huwara killing, the latest in a series of deadly attacks on Israelis by Palestinians this year.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas condemned Tuesday's attack, which came after a major reinforcement of Israeli troops in the West Bank following violence in Huwara, which is near a major road junction where settlers and Palestinians frequently clash.

Jenin, one of the main centers of militant activity in the West Bank where armed fighters parade openly, has been raided repeatedly by Israeli forces during the months of violence that has led to growing fears of a repeat of the Intifada or insurgency of the 1980s and early 2000s.

"The risk - not only for Palestine and Israel but also for the region - of the situation escalating out of control is significant," Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud told reporters in London.

Separately, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken last night repeated calls for both sides to de-escalate tensions. Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is also expected to raise the issue of violence when he visits Israel this week.

However, there has been no sign of abating in the violence ahead of the start of the holy month of Ramadan and the Jewish Passover festival.

It is known, since the beginning of the year Israeli forces have killed more than 70 Palestinians, including militant fighters and civilians. During the same period, Palestinians killed 13 Israelis and a Ukrainian woman in a series of apparently uncoordinated attacks.