Israeli forces killed three Palestinian in a West Bank operation, leading to a dispute over the nature of the incident. Palestinian sources claim it was a “veritable massacre”, while the Israeli army describes it as a counterterrorism operation to apprehend suspects.
Israeli forces killed three Palestinian fighters overnight in the occupied West Bank, Palestinian sources said Monday, in what the army described as an operation to capture terrorist suspects.
In a statement, the Palestinian health ministry identified the three men killed in the Balata refugee camp in Nablus as Muhammad Abu Zaytoun, 32, Fathi Abu Rizk, 30, and Abdullah Abu Hamdan, 24.
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, the armed wing of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas’s Fatah party, said in a statement that the three were among the group’s “fighters”.
The Israeli army said it had shot several fighters when a gun battle erupted during a “counterterrorism” operation in which it arrested three individuals.
During the operation, “armed suspects fired at the soldiers, who responded with live fire. Hits were identified,” it said.
The army added in a statement that it “apprehended three wanted individuals suspected of involvement in terrorist activity”, and that weapons and ammunition were seized.
Palestinian presidency spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh described the killings as a “veritable massacre” and charged that repeated Israeli raids and attacks by settlers constituted a “major war crime and a collective punishment”.
He said US “silence” had emboldened Israelis to escalate attacks, calling on Washington to “immediately intervene to stop the Israeli madness that will drag the region toward explosion”.
Marie de La Roche Saint-André, with AFP
