The Israeli army claims to have killed “ten terrorists” in a large-scale raid in the occupied West Bank. The Palestinian Red Crescent indicates for its part that 14 people died.
The Palestinian Red Crescent announced on Saturday April 20 that 14 people had been killed in an Israeli raid which began Thursday evening on the Nour Shams camp, near Tulkarem in the occupied West Bank.
The Israeli army said earlier on Saturday that it had killed ten people and arrested eight others in an “anti-terrorist” raid on this camp located in the north of Palestinian territory.
IDF announces the death of “ten terrorists”
Saturday evening, 48 hours after its incursion into this camp, a frequent target of these often deadly raids, the army withdrew, AFP journalists noted. Kept apart, they heard explosions and gunfire for much of the day and saw at least three houses being bombed, as well as drones flying over the camp, indicating a significant military presence on the site.
On images from AFPTV, we can see military vehicles and soldiers roaming the alleys of the camp, where nearly 7,000 people live.
“Security forces eliminated ten terrorists during clashes,” the army said in a statement, adding that eight soldiers and a border police officer were injured.
The Israeli army says these operations target Palestinian armed groups, but civilians are often among the victims.
Rescuer hit by gunfire
When the soldiers left on Saturday afternoon, rescuers rushed to help a handcuffed Palestinian, the soles of his feet lacerated, lying on a sidewalk.
The Palestinian Authority Health Ministry reported “several people killed and injured inside the camp, but the army is preventing medical teams from helping the injured.”
The ministry reports that eleven people were injured, including seven by gunshots. Among them, a rescuer was hit by a shot, added the same source in a press release.
The army carried out house-to-house raids in several neighborhoods of the camp, the correspondent also noted.
Residents contacted by AFP said they had been deprived of electricity and began to run out of food, being unable to enter or leave the camp. Supplies of milk for children were running out, and chronically ill people, particularly patients needing dialysis, were unable to receive care.
“Unprecedented incursion”
“This incursion is unprecedented,” assured AFP Muayad Shaaban, head of the Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission, an entity dependent on the Palestinian Authority, referring to “snipers on the roofs and special forces deployed “.
“The Israelis want to silence Palestinian resistance in the West Bank, especially in the camps in the north” of the territory, accused Hassan Khuraisha, a Palestinian deputy, interviewed by AFPTV.
Among the victims, Qais Fathi Nasrallah, 16, died after being “hit in the head by Israeli fire”, the Palestinian Ministry of Health and the Palestinian Wafa news agency said on Friday. Salim Faisal Ghanem, 30, was “killed by Israeli troops” on Friday in Nour-Shams, according to Wafa.
Traders went on strike on Saturday in Tulkarem to protest against this raid, according to the same source.
Intensification of violence in the West Bank
The Nour-Shams raid comes against a backdrop of intensifying violence in the West Bank, a Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967, since the start of the war in the Gaza Strip triggered by the Hamas attack on 7 October on Israeli soil.
At least 480 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers in the West Bank since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas.
On Saturday afternoon, the driver of a Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance was killed during clashes between settlers and Palestinian villagers in As-Sawiya, a village north of Ramallah, the organization and the ministry said Palestinian Health.
According to a witness contacted by AFP, settlers attacked houses in the village with stones and live ammunition in the afternoon. Two young Palestinians who came to confront them were injured. When an ambulance arrived, the driver was hit, according to this witness, who specified that Israeli soldiers were present.
Since October 7, nine Israelis, including five members of the security forces, have been killed in the West Bank, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha).