NEW YORK (AP) — The Israeli army raided a refugee camp near the city of Jericho on Saturday, besieging houses it said were being used as hideouts for Palestinian attackers and shooting at residents who opened fire. The fighting wounded six Palestinians, two seriously, said the Palestinian Health Ministry, and jolted a generally quiet oasis town that has seen less violence than other cities in Judea and Samaria.
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The army said it entered the Aqabat Jabr refugee camp southwest of Jericho to search for suspects involved in a shooting attack last week at the Almog junction.
Last Saturday, with Israel on edge after the deadliest Israeli military raid in two decades and two subsequent Palestinian terror attacks in east Jerusalem that killed seven people, the army said a Palestinian terrorist had opened fire in a restaurant at a settlement near Jericho. After firing one bullet, the terrorist’s gun apparently jammed and he fled the scene, the army said. No one was wounded.
The army said several Palestinians had holed up in their homes after the shooting with the help of family and were planning future attacks.
To force the fugitives to surrender, a military bulldozer clawed at the walls of one of the homes as an Israeli commander shouted threats over a loudspeaker. Camp residents reported receiving text messages urging families to keep their children inside and avoid clashing with Israeli troops.
The suspects and family members trickled out of one of the homes and turned themselves in, the military said. Security forces had leveled much of the house, leaving a pile of rubble and twisted metal. Palestinian protesters threw rocks and Molotov cocktails at military jeeps as they rumbled down the camp streets, while some gunmen opened fire. The Israeli military fired back, wounding six, none critically, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.
The incursion comes as violence rises in east Jerusalem under Israel’s new government, which has taken a combative stance against the Palestinians.
The Israeli army has ramped up near-nightly raids in Judea and Samaria since a series of deadly Palestinian attacks within Israel last spring. Over the last year and a half of escalating raids, Jericho has remained a sort of sleepy desert town, spared much of the violence.
Since last week’s shooting at the nearby settlement, the Israeli military has blocked access to several roads into Jericho — a closure that has placed the city under a semi-blockade, disrupting business and creating hourslong bottlenecks at checkpoints that affected even Palestinian security forces, footage showed.
The Palestinian Authority, in retaliation for last week’s raid into the Jenin refugee camp that killed 10 Palestinian terrorists, declared a halt to security coordination with Israel.
Nearly 150 Palestinians were killed last year in Judea, Samaria and east Jerusalem, making it the deadliest in those areas since 2004, according to figures by the Israeli left-wing group B’Tselem. More than 30 Israeli civilians were killed in Israel by Palestinians in 2022.
The Israeli army says most of the Palestinians killed were terrorists, but stone-throwing youths protesting the incursions and others not involved in confrontations have also been killed
The nature of war is that non combatant are unfortunately killed
Wouldn’t it be easier and safer to carbet bomb the whole place, putin the ohev yisroel may he be im power for 20 more years that the so called world is useless while fighting the cossacks and their toeiva meshumad leader
Only Jews and supporters of Jews should live, work, be educated, and be treated medically in Israel (ALL OF ISREAL…which includes Samaria and Judea). All others should be deported.