Eleven people were killed, including at least three civilians, and more than 100 people wounded during an Israeli military raid targeting militants in the West Bank city of Nablus yesterday. There were no Israeli casualties.
he rare daytime mission was one of the bloodiest in almost a year of fighting between Israel’s military and Palestinian militants in the northern West Bank.
The Israeli military said the four-hour operation had targeted three gunmen holed up in a hideout.
Palestinian officials said two men, aged 72 and 61, were among the dead, and 102 people were wounded.
The death toll raises the prospect of further bloodshed. A similar raid last month was followed by a deadly Palestinian attack outside a Jerusalem synagogue, and the Hamas militant group warned its patience “is running out”.
In a move that could further inflame tensions, Israel’s West Bank settler group said Israeli officials had approved construction of nearly 2,000 new homes in the settlements.
Israel’s government did not immediately confirm the decision, which came just two days after the UN Security Council issued a watered-down statement opposing settlement construction.
The Israeli military said it entered Nablus yesterday to arrest three wanted militants suspected in previous shooting attacks in the West Bank, including the killing of an Israeli soldier last autumn.
The military usually conducts raids at night, in what it says is a tactic meant to reduce the risk of civilian casualties. It said it took advantage of a rare “window of opportunity” after intelligence services located the men and warned they posed an imminent threat.
Soldiers surrounded the building and asked the men to surrender, but instead they opened fire. When one of the militants tried to flee, he was shot and killed, said a military spokesman. The military then fired missiles at the house, leaving it in ruins and killing the other two men.
A recently formed armed group based in Nablus called the Lion’s Den, which has surged in prominence over the past months, confirmed the militants were its members.
During the raid, the military said armed men in the city “shot heavily toward the forces”, which responded with live fire. It said others hurled rocks and explosives at the troops. The military released a video taken from inside an armoured vehicle as crowds of Palestinian youths pelted it with stones. There were no Israeli casualties.
Time-stamped security footage shared online appeared to show two unarmed young men running down a street. Gunshots are heard, and both fall to the ground, with one’s hat flying off his head. Both bodies remained still.
The Israeli military called the video “problematic” and said they were looking into it.
After the attack in the old city of Nablus yesterday, people stared at the rubble that had been the large home in the centuries-old marketplace. From one end to the other, shops were riddled with bullets. Parked cars were crushed. Blood stained the cement ruins.
The Palestinian health ministry said 102 people were wounded, and six of them were in critical condition. Various Palestinian militant groups claimed six of the dead – including the three from Lion’s Den targeted in the raid – as members.
Last month, Israeli troops killed 10 people in a similar raid in the northern West Bank.
The following day, a lone Palestinian gunman opened fire near a synagogue in an east Jerusalem settlement, killing seven people.
Days later, five Palestinians were killed in an Israeli arrest raid elsewhere in the West Bank. That was followed by a Palestinian car ramming that killed three Israelis, including two young brothers, in Jerusalem.
The fighting comes at a sensitive time, less than two months after Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s new hard-line government took office. The government is dominated by ultranationalists who have pushed for tougher action against Palestinians.