Israeli forces have shot dead three Palestinians near the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank.
The occupied West Bank is currently experiencing a period of increasing violence, marked by repeated Israeli raids which have shown no signs of abating.
“Three Palestinians have been killed by Israeli bullets in Nablus,” the Palestinian Health Ministry said on Tuesday, adding the identities of those killed were still unknown.
Hamas has said that the three people killed were members of this group and that the attack will not go unpunished.
Nayef Ghawadrah, one of the eyewitnesses, said: “I heard the sound of gunfire and look through the window of the house and I saw special unites some of them in civilian clothes and some of them wearing army clothes firing at a blue vehicle it was shot many times”.
However, Hamas announced that the three were members of this group and that the attack will not go unpunished.
Mustafa Barghouti, the Secretary General of the Palestinian National Initiative Movement, emphasized retaliating against this attack and said that Palestinians should resist such attacks.
“What the Israel army did and does will of course create a response from Palestinians and the act of resistance. Because today every Palestinian have to fight for his life, for the life of his children for the life of his family and for the protection of his house.”
The Israeli army said three “armed terrorists” had opened fire on its soldiers from a vehicle in a Nablus neighbourhood and the troops fired back “to neutralise” them.
Nablus is the territory’s commercial capital and a major focus of the Israeli military’s raids.
The Israeli military said it confiscated three M16 rifles and other equipment from their car.
This attack happened after a Palestinian killed an Israeli policeman in Jenin yesterday.
The number of Palestinians killed this year in the occupied Palestinian territories, which includes East Jerusalem and Gaza, is more than 200, with the majority of fatalities recorded in the occupied West Bank.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right, ultranationalist coalition has rejected talks with the Palestinian leadership, sought to expand illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank and pushed for a more aggressive approach to Palestinian attacks.
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