NABLUS, West Bank (AP) — Israeli forces killed two Palestinians in a burning town in the occupied West Bank on Friday, days after Israel concluded a major two-day offensive designed to suppress militants.
The ongoing violence has raised questions about the effectiveness of the raid earlier this week, which saw Israel launch rare airstrikes on militant targets, deploy hundreds of troops and cause extensive damage to roads, homes and businesses. businesses. As a result of the raid, 12 Palestinians and an Israeli soldier were killed.
The raid bore hallmarks of the second Palestinian uprising, a period of violence in the early 2000s that left thousands dead.
Israel’s internal security agency Shin Bet said on Friday that the two men it said were behind a shooting this week were killed in a shootout with Israeli forces in the heart of the city of Nablus, the commercial capital of the West Bank.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said two men were killed by Israeli fire, identifying them as Khayri Mohammed Sari Shaheen, 34, and Hamza Moayed Mohammed Maqbool, 32.
The day after the shooting, bullet casings littered the bloodstained floor. The Palestinians carried the bodies of the slain men to the hospital chanting “God is great!” as guns fired in the air.
Friday’s deaths are part of a year-long spiral of violence that shows no sign of abating, despite the fierce Israeli operation this week in the Jenin refugee camp. They follow a shooting Thursday by a Hamas militant near an Israeli settlement in the West Bank that killed an Israeli soldier.
Israel has been staging raids in the West Bank for 16 months, in response to a series of Palestinian attacks on Israelis last spring. The northern West Bank, which includes Nablus and Jenin and where the Palestinian Authority has less of a foothold, has been a major sticking point during this period.
More than 140 Palestinians have been killed this year in the West Bank, and Palestinian attacks targeting Israelis have killed at least 27 people, including a shooting spree last month that killed four settlers.
Israel captured the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Middle East War. Palestinians seek these territories for the independent state they hope for.