Three Palestinians killed as Israel launches new raid against suspected militants in the West Bank
Three Palestinian men were killed during an Israeli military operation against suspected militants in the West Bank on Tuesday morning, according to information from the Palestinian health ministry.
Among the dead is Ibrahim Al-Nabulsi, a regional militant commander in the north of the West Bank, and the apparent target of the Israeli raid. The other men killed have been named by Palestinian health ministry officials as Islam Sabbouh and Hussein Jamal Taha.
A statement from the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), a loose affiliation of smaller armed groups, hailed the three men’s deaths as a heroic act of resistance.
While closely linked, the PRC is regarded as separate from the armed wings of Islamic Jihad (the Quds Brigades) and Hamas (the Qassam Brigades).
Israeli forces surrounded a building in the old city of Nablus early Tuesday before targeting it with a shoulder-fired missile, an Israeli statement said, triggering an exchange of gunfire.
The Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group, said on Telegram that its members in Nablus were involved in “violent confrontations with enemy special forces as they stormed the old city.”
About 40 people were injured, several critically, in the violent exchanges, in addition to the three men killed, according to Palestinian health ministry.
Israel has accused Al Nabulsi of involvement in a series of recent shooting attacks on Israelis in the West Bank.
The fatal clashes look set to test the strength of a ceasefire restored for Gaza just over twenty-four hours ago, which ended two days of Israeli airstrikes against Islamic Jihad targets and rockets fired towards Israel.
An Islamic Jihad spokesman told CNN Tuesday that Israel was arresting and killing without any accountability.
“That is why we decided to resist with our weapons. If we don’t find weapons, we will resist with stones, but we will not give up,” spokesman Daoud Shihab said.
CNN’s Andrew Carey and Ibrahim Dahman contributed to this report.
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