JERUSALEM (AP) – Israeli forces shot and killed three Palestinian extremists in the occupied West Bank early Saturday, an operation that fuels continuing fears of violent violence between Israel and Palestinians during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Tensions have risen in recent days after Palestinian attackers killed 11 Israelis in separate attacks across the country. Israeli forces have stepped up security and launched arrests in the West Bank, killing two Palestinians in a shootout Thursday. Another Palestinian was killed Thursday after stabbing and wounding an Israeli on a West Bank bus.
Israeli police say the three extremists were members of a cell that has been involved in recent attacks on Israeli forces and are planning another attack that was thwarted during Saturday’s joint operation with the military and intelligence.
Live video footage from witnesses on social media shows a crowd of Palestinians inspecting the site of the clashes near the city of Jenin after Israeli troops withdrew. The street was covered in bloodstains, and the men chanted slogans calling for revenge.
Palestinian television reported that Israeli forces had captured the bodies of the dead fighters.
Earlier, after a Palestinian was killed in the city of Hebron during clashes that erupted after Friday prayers.
The health ministry said Ahmed al-Atrash, 29, was killed in Hebron on Friday. The Israeli army says its forces shot dead a Palestinian who threw an incendiary bomb at them.
Several hundred Jewish settlers live under heavy military protection in the heart of Hebron, a city of more than 200,000 Palestinians and home to a large holy site sacred to Jews and Muslims.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Emergency Service said dozens of Palestinians had been injured in weekly demonstrations elsewhere in the West Bank, where protesters often threw stones and incendiary bombs at Israeli soldiers, firing tear gas, bullets and sometimes rubber bullets. cartridges.
At the Al-Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem, the third holiest site in Islam, authorities said more than 30,000 people attended Friday prayers on the eve of Ramadan, which begins this weekend. There were no reports of protests or violence.
The top of the hill on which the mosque is located is the most sacred place for the Jews, who call it the Temple Mount and is a common point of ignition of the centuries-old conflict.
Israeli, Palestinian and Jordanian leaders have held a wave of talks in recent weeks, and Israel has made a series of gestures of goodwill, all aimed at easing tensions before Ramadan. They hope to avoid a repeat of last year, when protests and clashes in Jerusalem during Ramadan sparked an 11-day war in Gaza and Jewish-Arab violence in Israel’s mixed cities.