Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lauded Israeli forces on Thursday for the rare drone attack that eliminated a terrorist cell in the West Bank city of Jenin on Wednesday night.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched the drone attack based on information provided by the Shin Bet domestic security service. It targeted a vehicle carrying three militants responsible for recent gun attacks in the West Bank.
Rare Israeli Drone Attack
Per i24 News, two of them were members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad's Jenin Battalion, while the third was a member of Fatah's Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. According to a spokesperson for the Israeli Defense Forces, this was the first targeted air attack carried out in the West Bank since 2006.
Mohammed Bashar Uweis, 28, Suhayb Adnan al-Ghoul, 27, and Ashraf Murad Saadi, 17, were all identified by the Palestinian news agency Wafa as being from the city of Jenin.
According to BBC News, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) claimed that Ghoul and Saadi were its members, while Uweis belonged to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, the armed branch of the Fatah movement.
The IDF reported that its personnel had identified a vehicle containing gunmen who had opened fire at a checkpoint near Jalama, a hamlet located approximately 3.5 kilometers (2 miles) north of Jenin. Witnesses reported hearing gunfire just prior to the assault.
Posted social media footage appeared to show multiple emergency vehicles near the smoldering automobile wreckage that was the strike's target.
The drone strike occurred several hours after a Palestinian man was shot and killed during a disturbance by hundreds of Israeli settlers who torched residences and vehicles in the town of Turmusaya, located approximately 50 kilometers to the south.
According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, Israeli forces shot and killed the individual while confronting colonizers. The paramilitary border police of Israel stated that its forces were protecting firefighters when residents "rioted" and soldiers opened fire on a man who discharged at them.
The attack on Turmusaya followed the interment of a 17-year-old boy in a nearby settlement who was one of four Israelis killed by two Palestinian assailants from Hamas at a gas station and restaurant on Tuesday.
Hamas stated that the gunfire was in response to an Israeli military raid in Jenin that murdered seven Palestinians on Monday. It was the first time in years that the IDF employed an Apache attack helicopter in the West Bank. Seven soldiers were injured when the helicopter launched missiles at militants who had targeted military carriers with explosives.
Israel-Palestine Tensions Escalate
Moreover, Israeli troops demolished the residence of a Palestinian who is suspected of murdering an Israeli soldier last year on Thursday in the most recent military operation in the increasingly volatile and violent occupied West Bank.
The demolition occurred during a week of escalating tensions and unremitting violence in the West Bank and just hours after a rare Israeli airstrike near the city of Jenin killed three Palestinian militants. Wednesday morning, Israeli colonizers attacked Palestinian villages in retaliation for the murder of four Israelis the previous day.
According to PBS, Israel asserts that destroying the homes of Palestinian assailants functions as a deterrent, whereas critics assert that the practice corresponds to collective punishment.
In the meantime, Israeli police reported on Thursday that no arrests had been made in relation to the settler rampage through the Palestinian hamlet of Turmus Ayya. Palestinians and human rights organizations have long accused Israel of not prosecuting settler violence and whitewashing crimes committed by settlers and security personnel.
This week's violence was the latest in a spate of battling that has persisted for the past year and a half without abating. The Associated Press reports that 135 Palestinians and 25 Israelis were slain in the West Bank and east Jerusalem in 2018.
In early 2022, Israel conducted near-daily raids in the West Bank in response to a series of fatal Palestinian assaults against Israeli civilians. Israel claims that most Palestinians slain were militants, but stone-throwing youths protesting incursions and others not engaged in confrontations were also killed.
In the 1967 Middle East War, Israel captured the West Bank, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. The Palestinians desire these territories for a future independent state.
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