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by IMEMC News
Oct 20, 2023

The massive Israeli military offensive into the Nur Shams refugee camp in Tulkarem, in the northwestern part of the occupied West Bank, has resulted in the killing of 13 Palestinians, including six children.

The army started the offensive at dawn Thursday and only withdrew 27 hours later on Friday morning.

The Palestinian Health Ministry has confirmed that Israeli soldiers did not only use live ammunition but also armed drones, some loaded with explosives.

WAFA News Agency said seven of them were moved to Thabet Thabet Hospital in Tulkarem, while ambulances and medics could not evacuate five of the slain Palestinians due to the Israeli siege on the refugee camp and had to place their corpses in the mosque.

The Israeli army also cut the electricity and water lines and isolated the refugee camp during its offensive, in addition to attacking and firing at medics and journalists who tried to enter it.

The army also deployed sharpshooters on rooftops and opened fired at the Palestinians, while its heavy military bulldozers ravaged through its alleys, street and cars, and caused excessive damage to homes and property, leaving the refugee camp without infrastructure.

Only after the army withdrew from the refugee camp that the medics were able to transfer the five slain Palestinians and twenty wounded to the hospital.

The slain Palestinians were officially identified as:

Amer Faisal Ghannam, 73.
Yousef Omar Zaghdad, 12.
Odai Ma’moun Abu Al-Haija, 15.
Qaisar Jamal Khalil, 36.
Mojahed Mohammad Sa’aida, 16.
Osama Saed Khalil, 19.
Mohammad Fathi Hamed, 33.
Ali Abdullah Abu Khazna, 15.
Raed Ahmad Hamidi, 19.
Ahmad Faisal Ghannam, 25.
Sari Odai Taha Sanad, 15.
Taha Ibrahim Mahameed, 16.
Jamil Jamal Ja’ar, 21.
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Israeli border officer, 13 Palestinians killed in West Bank clashes, airstrike

By EMANUEL FABIAN, TOI STAFF and AGENCIES
19 October 2023, 5:11 pmUpdated: Today, 9:29 am

An Israeli officer was killed and nine others were injured in intense clashes with Palestinian gunmen in a refugee camp near the West Bank city of Tulkarem Thursday, Israeli authorities said.

Israel carried out a rare drone strike during the fighting in the Nur Shams camp, killing several Palestinians amid wide unrest in the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority said.

Master Sgt. Maxim Razinkov was fatally wounded by an improvised explosive device that was hurled at Border Police forces carrying out an arrest raid in the camp. Another nine officers were lightly wounded, police said.

The Palestinian health ministry reported that 12 Palestinians were killed in the drone strike and in other clashes on Thursday, with another one killed in overnight fighting. Two more Palestinians were killed in clashes elsewhere in the West Bank.

Israeli security forces arrested at least 10 wanted Palestinians, according to the Israel Defense Forces and police.

An Israeli officer was killed and nine others were injured in intense clashes with Palestinian gunmen in a refugee camp near the West Bank city of Tulkarem Thursday, Israeli authorities said.

Israel carried out a rare drone strike during the fighting in the Nur Shams camp, killing several Palestinians amid wide unrest in the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority said.

Master Sgt. Maxim Razinkov was fatally wounded by an improvised explosive device that was hurled at Border Police forces carrying out an arrest raid in the camp. Another nine officers were lightly wounded, police said.

The Palestinian health ministry reported that 12 Palestinians were killed in the drone strike and in other clashes on Thursday, with another one killed in overnight fighting. Two more Palestinians were killed in clashes elsewhere in the West Bank.

Israeli security forces arrested at least 10 wanted Palestinians, according to the Israel Defense Forces and police.

Police said officers battled Palestinian gunmen in the area, and demolished several explosive devices that were intended to have been used against the forces.

Master Sgt. Maxim Razinkov (Israel Police)
According to the IDF, the drone strike was carried out after an armed cell was identified near the forces.

In separate clashes earlier Thursday, the Palestinian health ministry said Israeli forces shot dead a 17-year-old in the Dheisheh refugee camp, near Bethlehem, and a 32-year-old in Budrus to the west of Ramallah.

In Budrus, the Israeli military said people “hurled Molotov cocktails and other objects” and burned tires and dumpsters, prompting soldiers to open fire.

Also overnight, the IDF said it had demolished the home of a Hamas terrorist who killed Israeli soldier Staff Sgt. Shilo Yosef Amir in the West Bank in July.

Footage showed an excavator destroying the home of Ahmed Yassin Ghaidan in the village of Qibya in the central West Bank.

In August, the Israel Defense Forces said it had notified Ghaidan’s family that their home was slated for demolition.

As a matter of policy, Israel regularly demolishes the homes of Palestinians accused of carrying out deadly terror attacks.

Ghaidan opened fire and killed Amir near the settlement of Kedumim on July 6, before being shot dead by other security forces.

The West Bank has seen several clashes between IDF forces and Palestinians in recent days, and several attempted Palestinian terror attacks, according to the army.

While attention has largely been focused on Israel’s borders with the Gaza Strip and Lebanon, tensions have risen considerably in the West Bank since thousands of Hamas gunmen surged into southern Israel from Gaza on October 7, slaughtering some 1,400 Israelis, most of them civilians. Israel has launched a campaign to eliminate the terror group, with over 3,700 people killed in its airstrikes in Gaza so far, according to health authorities in the Hamas-run Strip.

Hamas has repeatedly urged Palestinians in the West Bank to rise up against Israel in support of the terror group’s cause.

Tuesday night saw mass unrest in the West Bank as Palestinians raged over a deadly blast at a Gaza hospital that Hamas blamed on an Israeli strike, though Israel has denied responsibility and growing evidence points to a misfired Palestinian rocket aimed at Israel as the culprit.

Hamas called for attacks against Israeli forces as, across the West Bank, thousands of people took to the streets to protest the explosion. Palestinian forces in Ramallah fired tear gas at demonstrators who had gathered, calling for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to step down for insufficiently supporting Hamas.

Videos showed protesters in Ramallah chanting, “The people want the fall of the president.”

Israel has provided mounting evidence showing that a rocket launched at Israel by Palestinian Islamic Jihad misfired and hit the hospital parking lot. Islamic Jihad denied it caused the explosion. Visiting Israel, US President Joe Biden endorsed the Israeli account, saying his conclusion was based on US Defense Department information.

The IDF said Thursday that troops had arrested 524 wanted Palestinians across the West Bank, including more than 330 affiliated with Hamas, since the war in the Gaza Strip began on October 7.

Over the past day, 63 Hamas members were arrested, the military said.

Last week, UN monitors said the first week of the conflict with Gaza had been the deadliest week for Palestinians in the West Bank since at least 2005, with 55 Palestinians killed in clashes with Israeli troops, arrest raids and attacks by Jewish settlers, according to the Palestinian Authority’s health ministry.

In total, at least 81 West Bank Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces and settlers since October 7, according to the ministry.

Continue reading full article at Times of Israel News Source Link

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