The holy ground is on fire this Saturday. A guard from an occupied West Bank settlement was killed in an attack Friday evening after a day of fresh clashes between Palestinians and Israeli police at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in East Jerusalem, after more than a month of violence in the Palestinian Territories and Israel. The guard in his twenties, stationed at the entrance to the settlement of Ariel, in the northern West Bank, was shot dead by two assailants. They fled by car. In the afternoon, the police and Tsahal announced that they had apprehended the perpetrators of the attack.
Responsibility for the attack was claimed by the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the armed wing of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party, on Saturday. “We claim responsibility for the heroic operation in the settlement of Ariel in which a Zionist (Israeli, editor’s note) officer was killed. It was carried out in response to violations committed by the occupation government in Jerusalem,” the group said in a statement.
An allusion to the clashes between Israeli police and Palestinians who have left nearly 300 Palestinians injured for two weeks on and around the esplanade of the Mosques in East Jerusalem, a Palestinian sector of the Holy City occupied and annexed by Israel.
The ruling Hamas Islamist movement in the Gaza Strip hailed the attack as a “heroic operation”. This is part of our people’s response to the attacks on al-Aqsa,” Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said in a statement, referring to recent violence at the Al-Aqsa compound in East Jerusalem.
Military operations in the West Bank
In the northern West Bank, the presence of Israeli soldiers has been reinforced, in particular at the approaches to the Palestinian town of Salfit, near Ariel, the army said in a press release. The soldiers also carried out arrests of “suspicious terrorists” and seized weapons in the Palestinian village of Bruqin west of Ariel, and in the Balata refugee camp near Nablus, the army said. .
The army usually designates “terror suspects” Palestinians suspected of carrying out attacks or helping to carry them out. In addition, dozens of Palestinians participated Saturday in the funeral of Yahya Adwan, a Palestinian in his twenties, shot dead before dawn during an operation by the Israeli army in the locality of Azzoun, located about twenty kilometers from the colony of Ariel.
A spokeswoman for the army specified that the operation in Azzoun was linked to the manhunt to “find the terrorists who carried out the attack on Ariel”. Clashes erupted after the funeral between Palestinians and Israeli soldiers. Three Palestinians were injured by live ammunition in the legs and hospitalized, the Palestinian Red Crescent reported.
The violence comes in a context of escalation after four attacks in Israel between March 22 and April 7 that left 14 dead, including an Israeli Arab policeman and two Ukrainians. Two of the attacks were perpetrated in the Tel Aviv area by Palestinians from the West Bank, Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967. In the wake of these attacks, the Israeli army carried out several military operations in the West Bank. A total of 26 Palestinians and three Israeli Arabs were killed, including attackers. The new clashes in Jerusalem also took place on the day of the celebration of “Jerusalem Day” (Al-Quds in Arabic), initiated by Iran in the wake of the Islamic revolution of 1979.
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Hamas ready to launch ‘big battle’ for Jerusalem
“Jerusalem will remain at the center of the conflict with the (Israeli) enemy”, declared Hamas in the process, affirming that the “enemy’s projects of Judaization, desecration and division” were doomed to failure. “Whoever makes the decision to repeat this will himself make the decision to destroy thousands of synagogues around the world,” Yahya Sinouar, head of Hamas’ political bureau in the blockaded Gaza Strip, said in a speech. Israeli.
“You will have to prepare for a big battle if the occupation (name given to Israel by Palestinians, editor’s note) does not stop attacking the Al-Aqsa mosque,” he added. This rare speech was delivered on the anniversary, according to the Muslim calendar, of the 11-day war, in May 2021, between Israel and Hamas. He also paid tribute to Iran, Israel’s main enemy, and movements backed by the Islamic Republic, including Lebanese Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Yemeni Houthi rebels. In the event of “aggression” on the esplanade of the Mosques during “Jerusalem Day”, Hamas will launch more than a thousand rockets towards Israel, Mr. Sinouar further threatened.