Israeli forces killed one Palestinian and wounded another in clashes sparked by a new military incursion in Nablus, a city in the northern occupied West Bank, the Palestinian National Authority Health Ministry said on Monday.
“Saleh Muhamed Saleh Sabra, 22, died of bullets to the chest during the Israeli attack on Nablus this morning,” the ministry said. Another man was “injured by bullets” in the same incident, he added.
The Israeli army said it had carried out an operation in the city of Nablus to prepare for the demolition of the home of a suspect in an armed attack that killed two Israelis in the area in February.
“During the operation, the suspects threw stones and fired at the soldiers who responded with live ammunition,” the army said in a statement, confirming that one person was injured.
It is Israeli authorities’ policy to destroy the homes of families of Palestinians accused of terrorist activities, an action criticized by human rights organizations as “collective punishment.”
Large Israeli troops “attacked Nablus from several fronts and violent clashes broke out in the Askar refugee camp and in the residential neighborhood of the city,” the official Palestinian news agency Wafa said.
The occupied West Bank is experiencing the worst wave of violence since the Second Intifada (2000-2005). Since the beginning of the year, 116 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli military incursions in the region, including 20 minors, and another 19 people, including three minors, have been killed on the Israeli side.
The incursions into the occupied West Bank come after calm returned to the Gaza Strip, which has seen a five-day escalation in attacks between Israeli and Palestinian militias.
On May 9, the Israeli army shelled Islamic Jihad targets in the enclave, to which the militia responded with numerous bursts of rockets.
In this escalation, 33 people were killed in Gaza, including at least 15 civilians, six of them children. Two deaths were reported in Israel: an elderly woman whose apartment was hit by a rocket and a Palestinian who was leading her herd to graze near the Gaza Strip.
Source: TSF
