Israelis kill three Palestinian militants as violence spirals

Three Islamic Jihad terrorists were killed by Israeli security forces during a raid in the West Bank on Saturday, authorities said, the latest killings amid a wave of violence.

The bloodshed comes as tensions rise ahead of the start of Ramadan, the holy Muslim month in which unrest has erupted in Israel and the occupied West Bank.

During Ramadan last year, skirmishes between Israeli soldiers and Palestinians visiting the Al-Aqsa mosque in disputed east Jerusalem erupted into an 11-day war between Israel and Hamas, the Gaza Strip’s Islamist authorities.

Israeli police reported on Saturday that three members of the Islamic Jihad militant group opened fire during an operation to apprehend them in Jenin, in the northern West Bank.

According to the police, four Israeli soldiers were injured during the operation, and one of them was critically injured.

The Israeli forces had intercepted “a terrorist cell on its way to an attack, and stopped the car in which they were traveling between Jenin and Tulkarem”, the police said in a statement.

The Islamic Jihad confirmed the three deaths.

“We mourn the death of our three hero fighters,” the armed wing of the Islamist movement said, adding that two of them were from Jenin and one from Tulkarem.

Hamas issued a warning to the Israelis.

“The enemy’s policy of assassination in the West Bank and occupied Jerusalem will not provide it with so-called security,” Hamas said.

Saturday’s clash is the latest in a spate of bloody violence in Israel and the West Bank since March 22.

IS-linked attack

During tensions in the West Bank city of Hebron on Friday, Israeli soldiers shot and killed a 29-year-old Palestinian, according to the Palestinian health ministry.

Ahmad al-Atrash, according to the Palestinian Wafa news agency, was taking part in a rally against Israeli settlements and had previously served six years in an Israeli prison.

During a “riot” in Hebron, “a suspect hurled a Molotov cocktail” at soldiers, who “retaliated with live fire,” according to the Israeli army.

Among the more than 200,000 Palestinians in Hebron, the largest city in the West Bank, around 1,000 Jews live under Israeli military protection.

In Friday’s battles with the Israeli army in the Nablus district of the northern West Bank, the Palestinian Red Crescent stated 70 people were injured.

According to the Palestinian health ministry, Israeli security forces entered Jenin on Thursday after three fatal attacks shook the Jewish state, resulting in skirmishes in which two Palestinians were killed.

On the same day in the West Bank, a Palestinian man was shot and killed south of Bethlehem after stabbing and badly wounding an Israeli civilian with a screwdriver on a bus.

The violence erupted after an attack in Bnei Brak, an Orthodox Jewish city near Tel Aviv, on Tuesday night.

Two Israeli citizens, two Ukrainian nationals, and an Israeli-Arab policeman were slain by a Palestinian with an M-16 assault rifle.

Since March 22, 11 individuals have been slain in anti-Israel acts, including those perpetrated for the first time by assailants related to or inspired by the Islamic State.

Nearly 500,000 Jewish settlers live in enclaves that are considered illegal under international law in the West Bank, which has been occupied by Israeli forces since the 1967 Six-Day War.

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