AQABAT JABR REFUGEE CAMP, West Financial institution — The Israeli military raided a refugee camp close to the Palestinian metropolis of Jericho on Saturday, besieging homes it stated have been getting used as hideouts for Palestinian attackers and taking pictures at residents who opened fireplace. The combating wounded six Palestinians, two significantly, stated the Palestinian Well being Ministry, and jolted a usually quiet oasis city that has seen much less violence than different West Financial institution cities.
The military stated it entered the Aqabat Jabr refugee camp southwest of Jericho within the occupied West Financial institution to seek for suspects concerned in a taking pictures assault final week at a close-by Israeli settlement.
Final Saturday, with the West Financial institution on edge after the deadliest Israeli navy raid in 20 years and two subsequent Palestinian assaults in east Jerusalem that killed seven individuals, the military stated a Palestinian gunman had opened fireplace in a restaurant at a settlement close to Jericho. After firing one bullet, the gunman fled the scene, the military stated. Nobody was wounded.
The military stated a number of Palestinians had holed up of their houses after the taking pictures with the assistance of household and have been planning future assaults.
To pressure the fugitives to give up, a navy bulldozer clawed on the partitions of one of many houses as an Israeli commander shouted threats over a loudspeaker. Camp residents reported receiving textual content messages urging households to maintain their kids inside and keep away from clashing with Israeli troops.
The suspects and relations trickled out of one of many houses and turned themselves in, the navy stated. Safety forces had leveled a lot of the home, leaving a pile of rubble and twisted steel. Palestinian protesters threw rocks and Molotov cocktails at navy jeeps as they rumbled down the camp streets, whereas some gunmen opened fireplace. The Israeli navy fired again, wounding six, none critically, the Palestinian Well being Ministry stated.
The incursion comes as violence rises in east Jerusalem and the occupied West Financial institution beneath Israel’s new far-right authorities, which has taken a combative stance towards the Palestinians. Israel captured the West Financial institution within the 1967 Mideast struggle, together with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. The Palestinians search these territories for his or her hoped-for impartial state.
The Israeli military has ramped up near-nightly raids within the occupied West Financial institution since a sequence of lethal Palestinian assaults inside Israel final spring. During the last 12 months and a half of escalating raids, Jericho has remained a kind of sleepy desert city, spared a lot of the violence.
Since final week’s taking pictures on the close by settlement, the Israeli navy has blocked entry to a number of roads into Jericho — a closure that has positioned the town beneath a semi-blockade, disrupting enterprise and creating hourslong bottlenecks at checkpoints that affected even Palestinian safety forces, footage confirmed.
The Palestinian Authority, in retaliation for final week’s raid into the Jenin refugee camp that killed 10 Palestinians, declared a halt to safety coordination with Israel.
Practically 150 Palestinians have been killed final 12 months within the West Financial institution and east Jerusalem, making it the deadliest in these areas since 2004, in line with figures by the Israeli rights group B’Tselem. Some 30 individuals have been killed in Israel by Palestinians in 2022.
The Israeli military says many of the Palestinians killed have been militants. However stone-throwing youths protesting the incursions and others not concerned in confrontations have additionally been killed.
