2023-05-04 09:20:02
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israeli soldiers have killed three Palestinians wanted in connection with a deadly attack on Israelis, Israel’s military said Thursday, in the latest bloodshed in an unrelenting wave of violence.
The men were behind a car attack last month near a Jewish settlement in the West Bank that killed a British-Israeli mother and two of her daughters, the military said.
The troops entered the heart of the troubled city of Nablus in the occupied West Bank early Thursday and killed the three suspects — two of whom were suspected Hamas-affiliated militants — in a fierce firefight, he added, identifying the men. deceased such as Hassan Katnani, Moaz Masri and Ibrahim Hura.
The Palestinian Health Ministry reported the deaths of three people but did not immediately identify them.
The violence in Nablus comes at a particularly sensitive time in the region, days after a prominent Palestinian prisoner who was on a long hunger strike over his detention died in Israeli custody. His death sparked a barrage of projectiles launched by insurgents in Gaza and airstrikes on the coastal enclave that caused one death.
Israel has carried out almost daily nightly detention raids on cities, towns and villages in the West Bank for more than a year, in an operation sparked by a wave of Palestinian attacks on Israelis last year. Israel maintains that these incursions are aimed at dismantling insurgent networks and thwarting future attacks, but Palestinians see them as entrenching Israel’s 56-year occupation of the land they want for their future state.
In response to the raids, Palestinian attacks have increased.
Some 250 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since the start of the operation. Israel says most were insurgents, but the victims also included youthful rock throwers and people not involved in the fighting.
During that time, nearly 50 people have been killed in Palestinian attacks on Israelis.
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