At least three Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in two separate incidents in the occupied West Bank, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, as Israeli forces continued to carry out raids across the territory.
In the first incident, at a junction near the Palestinian city of Hebron, the Israeli military said its troops were shot at by one man, while another attempted to stab them, before they opened fire on both individuals.
The official Palestinian news agency Wafa, citing local sources, said ambulance crews were prevented from reaching the site. The two men, aged 18 and 19 years old, were later confirmed dead.
In the second incident, at a checkpoint further north in the West Bank, the military said a woman tried to stab soldiers who then responded with live fire. She was later confirmed dead by Palestinian health authorities.
The killings took place after at least 14 people were killed in three days of incursions on Nur Shams refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said late on Saturday that its crews had “evacuated 14 martyrs from Nur Shams camp to the hospital”. The Israeli army said troops had killed 10 “fighters” during the operation, which it said started on Thursday.
Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Salhut said on Sunday that there were at least five active raids across the territory, primarily focusing on the Nablus, Hebron and Ramallah areas.
“At least one Palestinian has been arrested in Nablus. In Hebron, in the village of Beit Ummar, Israeli forces are invading one of the homes, reportedly looking for someone,” she said from occupied East Jerusalem.
According to Wafa, at least four people were arrested in Hebron.
Since early last year, Israel has intensified raids in the occupied West Bank, which were accelerated after Israel launched its war on Gaza on October 7. At least 482 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli forces or settlers since the war began. More than 34,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, have been killed in Israeli attacks in the past six months.
Earlier, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said it had confirmed 11 injured in the Israeli raid, seven of them “wounded by live gunshots”. Among them was a paramedic shot while trying to get to the wounded, it added.
🚑Up to now, the Palestine Red Crescent ambulance teams have evacuated 14 martyrs from the Nour Shams camp in Tulkarem to the hospital.
— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) April 20, 2024
Medics had been alerted to “a number of killed and injured” inside the camp, but the army was “denying them access to tend to the wounded”, the ministry said.
Moreover, residents contacted by the AFP news agency on Saturday said there was no electricity in the camp and food was running short, but nobody was being allowed to enter or leave.
Minister Muayad Shaaban, head of the Palestinian Colonisation and Wall Resistance Commission, said residents were suffering from the “destruction of homes, shops, the electricity grid, the sewerage, the water network and infrastructure”.
Al Jazeera’s Nida Ibrahim, reporting from Tulkarem early on Sunday, witnessed first responders attempting to fix the electricity and water lines amid damage at an unprecedented scale.
“People here say even during the second Intifada in the early 2000s, this is even worse when compared to that,” Ibrahim said.
“We’ve seen some burn [signs] in some of the homes, but we’re told more and more homes have been burned up. The feeling here is that what is happening here was a targeted demolition, a targeted damaging … Wherever you go in the camp, you’ll see the roads [have] been completely damaged … the water lines have burst as well as the sewage lines.”
Strike called
Tulkarem Governor Mustafa Taqatqa has called for a strike and a day of public mourning over the Nur Shams raid.
“All these crimes will not affect the determination of our people and their free will, leading to the end of the occupation and the establishment of our independent Palestinian state,” he was quoted as saying by Wafa.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health said a 50-year-old ambulance driver was killed by Israeli gunfire near the village of as-Sawiya, south of the city of Nablus, as he was making his way to transport people injured during the attack on the village on Saturday.
It was not immediately clear whether he was shot by Israeli settlers, and there was no immediate comment from the military.
More than 700,000 settlers – 10 percent of Israel’s nearly seven million population – now live in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
All settlements are considered illegal under international laws as they violate the United Nations’ Fourth Geneva Convention, which bans an occupying power from transferring its population to the area it occupies.
