An Israeli drone struck a car carrying three Palestinian gunmen who had just opened fire at a checkpoint in the northern West Bank on Wednesday night, the military and Shin Bet security agency said.
The strike, which the IDF said killed all three, marked the first targeted killings in the West Bank since 2006, according to the Israel Defense Forces, and came after attack helicopters were used in a military raid in the northern West Bank city of Jenin earlier this week, also for the first time in some two decades.
The IDF and Shin Bet said in a joint statement that the gunmen had opened fire at Jalameh Checkpoint, north of Jenin. Following the shooting attack on the checkpoint, a drone carried out a strike on their vehicle.
The cell was also responsible for a number of recent shooting attacks in the area, the IDF and Shin Bet added, including toward towns in northern Israel, over the West Bank security barrier.
IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told reporters that three Palestinians were killed in the strike carried out by an Elbit Hermes 450 drone, operated by the Artillery Corps.
The Israeli military sent out helicopter gunships Monday after Palestinian militants detonated a roadside bomb next to a military vehicle in the West Bank, according to the Associated Press.
Members of the Israeli military exchanged fire with a group of Palestinians after the bomb injured seven soldiers, who suffered light to moderate injuries, according to the AP. The soldiers were in the area to perform an arrest, and after engaging for some time in a “massive exchange of fire,” the military called in its gunships.
Thousands of Druze residents of the Golan Heights rioted for the second day Wednesday against the construction of a new wind farm near the town of Majdal Shams, burning tires and hurling rocks, fireworks and Molotov cocktails at massive police forces securing the area.
The Israel Police urged the public to stay away.
Twelve police officers were wounded. Four demonstrators were seriously injured, one of them from gunfire, along with three moderately and one lightly. The injured were taken to Ziv hospital in Safed, with three — including two of the seriously injured — transferred to Rambam hospital in Haifa.
Hundreds of Israeli settlers tore through the Palestinian town of Turmus Ayya on Wednesday afternoon, setting homes, cars, and fields on fire and terrorizing residents shortly after Israeli victims of a Palestinian terror shooting in the West Bank were buried.
The Palestinian Authority health ministry said one Palestinian was killed and another 12 were wounded during the attack by settlers and clashes with Israeli troops. At least four were wounded by gunfire, including one listed in serious condition, the ministry said.
The slain man was named as 27-year-old Omar Qattin, who residents said was a father of two small children and worked as an electrician for the local municipality.
Police said an officer opened fire and hit at least one Palestinian who was suspected of shooting at security forces during clashes.
It was unclear if Qattin was the one who was shot by police, though Palestinian witnesses said the slain man was nowhere near Israeli forces when he was shot. It was also unclear who shot the other four Palestinians.
Israel’s Middle Eastern neighbors, the European Union and United Nations condemned the Israel Defense Forces’ incursion into the West Bank city of Jenin Monday, which resulted in deadly clashes between Israeli troops and Palestinians.
Seven Palestinians were killed and nearly 100 were wounded during the IDF raid, after a massive roadside bomb was detonated against an army vehicle, leading to intense gun battles between troops and armed Palestinians. Eight IDF soldiers sustained light-to-moderate injuries in the clashes and blast. Three of the Palestinians killed have been confirmed as members of Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Two of the others were teens.
Jordan’s Foreign Ministry condemned the operation, warning that “everyone will pay the price” for the violence.
Amman urged a cessation of Israeli incursions into Palestinian cities in the West Bank and called on the international community “to stop this aggression and provide protection to the Palestinian people in all the occupied Palestinian territories.”
Israel regularly conducts arrest operations in Palestinian cities, saying these are necessary to prevent terror attacks.
Israeli settler vigilantes tore through several Palestinian towns in the West Bank following a deadly shooting attack on a nearby settlement Tuesday night, setting cars and fields on fire, vandalizing homes and terrorizing residents in a grim repeat of an incident some termed a pogrom earlier this year.
Palestinians in Luban a-Sharqiya, Huwara, Beit Furik, Burin and other towns south of Nablus in the northern West Bank said carloads of settlers rampaged through the villages Tuesday night, hurling stones and setting cars, fields, homes and other property ablaze.
Three Israelis were arrested over the attacks, Israel’s Ynet news reported.
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