Jerusalem (EFE) portends a potential full-scale Israeli military campaign.
The Israeli army launched an armed drone at a vehicle in the northern occupied West Bank on Wednesday, killing three Palestinian militants.
The official Palestinian news agency, Wafa, reported the attack by “an Israeli drone, north of Jenin,” a stronghold of Palestinian militias in the northern occupied West Bank,
For its part, the Israeli Army confirmed that, with intelligence data, “Israeli soldiers identified a terrorist cell that carried out a series of shooting attacks” against Israeli settlements in the West Bank and that “an unmanned aerial vehicle fired at the cell and neutralized them.”
The last time an attack of this type was carried out was in 2006, after the Second Intifada (2000-05), confirmed the Army spokesman, Danien Hagari.
According to his version, the attacked cell, belonging to the Jenin Battalion that brings together all the Palestinian militias in the area of all ideologies, carried out an armed attack this Wednesday near the city of Jalamah, in the West Bank, and in his vehicle They found assault rifles.
Islamic Jihad members
The Islamic Jihad has claimed the dead as militants from its ranks, whose bodies have been retained by the Israeli Army to “verify their identity”.
Palestinian Civil Protection agents extinguished the fire in the vehicle hit by the missile “inside which three charred bodies were found” but Israeli forces “prevented ambulances from reaching the area,” according to Wafa.
“I commend the security forces who recently carried out a targeted elimination of a terrorist squad that was firing into Israeli territory, and which had previously carried out several shooting attacks,” Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said in his account. Twitter.
The minister added that “against terrorism we will adopt an offensive and proactive approach, we will use all the means at our disposal and we will demand the highest price from any terrorist or terrorist messenger.”
upsurge in violence
On Monday, the Israeli army carried out a “routine operation” in Jenin to detain suspects, but was met with an unexpected response from the Jenin Battalion that led to more than nine hours of heavy fighting.
For the first time since 2005, the army used helicopter gunships to strike from the air in the West Bank, killing seven Palestinians and wounding 90 others, as well as wounding eight Israeli troops.
This Wednesday was also a particularly violent day in the West Bank, with Army operations at various points and massive attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinian villages.
One Palestinian was killed and 12 wounded in Turmusaya, in the central occupied West Bank, where hundreds of settlers turned out en masse to burn dozens of houses and cars.
Hours later, more than 100 settlers from the Yitzhar area entered the nearby Palestinian village of Urif and attacked the residents.
Israel destroys the family home of a detained Palestinian
These events follow another massive attack by settlers on Tuesday in the Palestinian town of Huwara, in which 34 Palestinians were injured and at least 140 cars burned, as well as fields burned to the ground and houses damaged by stone impacts.
It was the settlers’ response to a Palestinian attack hours earlier, in which four residents of the Eli settlement were killed.
The occupied West Bank is experiencing its highest peak of violence since the Second Intifada (2000-05), with 140 Palestinians killed so far this year, many militants but also civilians -including 23 minors-, and the majority in armed clashes with Israeli troops. who have intensified their raids in the area.
This morning, the Israeli Army destroyed the family residence in the city of Nablus of a Palestinian who killed an Israeli soldier in October last year.
The military statement states that during the operation, “there were a series of disturbances that included shooting at the troops, the throwing of explosive devices and stones, and the burning of tires,” to which the forces responded with “anti-riot dispersal means.”