5 killed in Israeli raid on alleged militant hideout in West Bank
The Israeli military says its forces raided a stronghold of an armed group in Nablus, the occupied West Bank’s second-largest city.
NABLUS, West Bank — Israel’s military said Tuesday that its forces raided a stronghold of an armed group in the occupied West Bank’s second-largest city, blowing up an explosives lab and engaging in a firefight. Five Palestinians were killed and 20 were wounded, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
The overnight raid in the Old City, or kasbah, of Nablus was one of Israel’s deadliest operations in the West Bank in 2022 and comes at a time of escalating tensions.
Television footage showed flames and smoke rising in the night sky over Nablus. The Israeli army said it used shoulder-launched missiles. Local residents reported a large explosion that rocked the Old City and surrounding neighborhoods.
The target of the raid was a group of Palestinian gunmen calling themselves the Lion’s Den. The group was responsible for the recent fatal shooting of an Israeli soldier and several attempted attacks, the army said.
The five men killed in the raid were in their 20s and 30s, the Palestinian Health Ministry said. Several of the wounded were in serious condition, the ministry said.
Israel’s caretaker Prime Minister Yair Lapid confirmed that Wadie Houh, a leader of the Lion’s Den group, was killed in a shootout with Israeli troops overnight. In remarks at a conference, he said the operation was “an accurate and deadly strike at the heart of terror infrastructure trying to carry out attacks.”
An Israeli military body has released a list of rules and restriction for foreigners wanting to enter Palestinian areas of the West Bank.
Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip staged a general strike in protest of Tuesday’s killings. Stores remained shuttered throughout the day in Nablus, Ramallah, Gaza City and other Palestinian cities.
Elsewhere in the West Bank, the army said troops fired at a person who threw an explosive at them during an arrest raid near the village of Nebi Saleh. The Palestinian Health Ministry reported the death of 19-year-old Qusai Tamimi.
Ongoing Israeli arrest raids in the West Bank pose a serious challenge to the Palestinians’ self-rule government, which administers slightly more than one-third of the territory.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas relies on security cooperation with Israel, particularly against his Islamic militant rivals, to remain in power. At the same time, this cooperation is deeply unpopular among Palestinians who chafe against Israel’s open-ended occupation, now in its 56th year.
Younger Palestinians are particularly disillusioned. Small bands of gunmen have formed in some areas, first in the Jenin refugee camp, a stronghold of militants, and now in Nablus. These groups challenge the Palestinian Authority and carry out attacks against Israeli targets.
The latest wave of Israeli-Palestinian violence has been centered on Jenin, a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.
In Tuesday’s raid, Israeli forces blew up an explosives lab in an apartment in Nablus, the military said. The statement said a number of militants were targeted and noted that Palestinians were reporting casualties. From the wording of the statement it was not immediately clear if some of those killed and wounded were hit in an initial ambush rather than a subsequent firefight.
Abbas’ spokesman, Nabil Abu Rdeneh, issued a statement in which he described the ongoing Israeli raids as a war crime.
More than 125 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli-Palestinian fighting in the West Bank and East Jerusalem this year. The fighting has surged since a series of Palestinian attacks killed 19 people in Israel in the spring. The Israeli army says most of the Palestinians killed have been militants. But stone-throwing youths protesting the incursions and others not involved in confrontations have also been killed.
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