A massive Israeli assault against a militant organization in the occupied West Bank has resulted in the deaths of five Palestinians, including at least three gunmen.
Palestinian medical sources report that a sixth Palestinian was shot dead by Israeli troops who were pelted with stones in protest of the raid.
In the northern city of Nablus, the operation targeted the recently founded Lion’s Den faction.
The terrorists shot and murdered an Israeli soldier earlier this month.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have sealed off Nablus for the past two weeks as part of an aggressive manhunt for the soldier’s murderer. 21-year-old Staff Sergeant Ido Baruch was killed in an ambush in an Israeli settlement about 8 kilometers (five miles) away.
In recent weeks, violence has escalated between Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank as a result of an ongoing Israeli campaign to hunt out extremists following a spate of deadly attacks on Israelis earlier in the year.
Tom Bateman of the BBC reports from Nablus that exchanges of fire between Israeli troops and legitimate, internationally recognized Palestinian security forces will cause concern among the diplomatic community.
When our journalist entered the city on Tuesday, the road was covered with debris from the overnight skirmishes – boulders were thrown across the asphalt and fire workers were pumping water over burning tires.
Nablus is now on strike. The calm is only disturbed by the sound of gunmen returning from the funerals and continuing to fire into the air, he explains.
Following near-daily arrest raids by Israeli troops targeting militants in the northern West Bank, the Lion’s Den group was founded. The Israeli military estimates that it has a few dozen members and has carried out or attempted assaults in the Nablus region and as far away as Tel Aviv.
Recently, the organization challenged the Palestinian Authority (PA), which oversees Nablus, by refusing to surrender its weapons in exchange for joining the official Palestinian security forces.
Base demolished
The IDF stated that security forces had targeted an apartment in the center of Nablus’s Old City, which had been used as a bomb factory and the group’s headquarters.
Young men rushed onto the streets as Palestinians broadcasted over loudspeakers a call for people to defend the city.
Five Palestinians were murdered when Israeli soldiers and Palestinians engaged in a deadly fire battle.
At least three deceased members of Lion’s Den have been identified, including the group’s founder and senior commander, Wadi al-Hough, 31. Locals report that two of those murdered were civilians who were not participating in the combat, despite claims by Israeli media that all five were members of the group.
Hamdi Sharaf, 35, Ali Antar, 26, Hamdi Qayyim, 30, and Mishaal Zahi Baghdadi, 27, were also slain in Nablus, according to the official Palestinian news agency Wafa.
More than twenty Palestinians were injured during the fighting, according to the Palestinian health ministry. No reports of Israeli casualties exist.
During the raid, Israeli forces detonated a flat. According to local sources, an anti-tank missile was fired at the structure.
According to reports, 19-year-old Qusai Tamimi was shot and killed in the southern town of Nabi Saleh when youths threw stones at Israeli soldiers in protest over the Nablus raid.
After 17 Israelis and two Ukrainians were murdered by Palestinian and Israeli Arab assailants earlier this year, the IDF initiated a bigger, ongoing operation dubbed Break the Wave.
Since January, more than 100 Palestinians, including militants, attackers, and civilians, have been killed in the West Bank and East Jerusalem due to the escalation in violence, making this year one of the worst since 2015 for Palestinians.
