Four Palestinians were killed and nearly 20 others injured in raids by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank early Tuesday, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.
“There are three dead and 19 wounded, three of them seriously, by Israeli fire in Nablus,” the ministry said in a brief statement, referring to a city in the occupied West Bank.
The ministry later reported that another Palestinian was killed by Israeli fire, this time in Ramallah, the seat of the Palestinian Authority’s headquarters in the central West Bank.
The Israeli army, in a joint statement with police and intelligence services, confirmed that it had conducted a large-scale night operation in Nablus, raiding a “hideaway apartment…used as a headquarters and explosives manufacturing facility.”
“The location was used by the main agents of the terror group ‘The Lion’s Den,'” the statement said, referring to a new group of young Palestinian fighters who have been conducting anti-Israel operations in Nablus in recent weeks.
“Several armed suspects were hit during the activity and Palestinian reports indicate there were multiple injuries.”
The lion’s den – called “Areen al-Ossoud” in Arabic – is made up of young Palestinian fighters, some linked to groups like Fatah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
They claimed responsibility for a deadly attack on an Israeli soldier two weeks ago in the occupied West Bank.
Their late leader Ibrahim al-Nabulsi, nicknamed “The Lion of Nablus,” was known for stirring up youth before he was shot dead by Israeli forces in August. Since then, he has become a folk hero for Palestinians on social media.
After Nabulsi’s death, the Israeli army tightened its grip on the city, set up controls to identify people leaving the city and constantly scanned the skies with surveillance drones.
On Saturday night, a Lions’ Den fighter, Tamer al-Kilani, was killed in the old city of Nablus by an explosion that the group and the Israeli press attributed to a remote-controlled bomb operated by the Israeli army. The army did not comment on these claims.
After the early morning clash, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas “is making urgent contacts to stop this aggression against our people,” his spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeinah said in a statement.
Palestinian Islamic Jihad also said in a statement its “fighters have engaged in violent clashes” with Israeli forces in Nablus and threatened Israel with retaliation “for these crimes” there.
– ‘War Crimes’ –
Violence has increased in recent months in the northern West Bank, Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967, particularly in the Nablus and Jenin areas.
Israeli soldiers have stepped up operations in both cities since March following deadly anti-Israeli attacks.
These raids, which have often been accompanied by clashes with the Palestinian population, have resulted in more than a hundred Palestinian deaths, according to the United Nations, the highest death toll in the West Bank in almost seven years.
More than 20 Palestinians and two Israeli soldiers have been killed since the beginning of the month, according to an AFP report.
Amnesty International on Tuesday called for an International Criminal Court inquiry into possible “war crimes” committed by both Israeli and Palestinian militants in August during deadly fighting in the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian enclave under an Israeli blockade since 2007.
Thirty-one civilians were among the 49 Palestinians killed during the three-day Gaza conflict, Global Rights Group said in a new report that looked specifically at three incidents — two attributed to Israeli forces and one to Palestinian factions.
“The three deadly attacks we investigated must be investigated as war crimes,” said Agnes Callamard, Amnesty International Secretary-General. “All victims of unlawful attacks and their families deserve justice and redress.”
