Jerusalem24 – The Israeli military killed ten Palestinians including a child in Jenin in the northern occupied West Bank between Tuesday afternoon and Thursday morning.
Three men were targeted for execution and killed in an exchange of fire in the early hours of Thursday in Jabaa south of Jenin, while six were shot and killed during a daytime invasion of Jenin refugee camp on Tuesday afternoon, with a 14-year-old child succumbing to his injuries on Thursday morning.
Israeli forces and settlers have now killed 77 Palestinians including 15 children since the beginning of the year, 31 of which were killed in Jenin.
Execution
Three fighters affiliated with armed Palestinian groups were executed in their private vehicle when it was targeted with heavy ammunition as the army infiltrated the village of Jabaa early on Thursday morning.
The Ministry of Health identified the three men as 29-year-old Sufian Adnan Fakhouri, 25-year-old Nayef Ahmad Malaysheh, and 22-year-old Ahmad Mohammad Deeb Fashafsha.
Palestinian media reports that Fashafsha was a leader in the Jabaa Battalions, which is affiliated with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
The Jabaa Battalions mourned its members in a statement on its Telegram channel, and said that “the coward assassination of its members will not deteriorate its efforts in confronting the occupation.”
According to Israeli Walla military correspondent Amir Bahbout, the initial Israeli investigations revealed that an undercover unit infiltrated the town of Jabaa and met with the fighters’ vehicle, and tried to block its movement.
When the Palestinian fighters responded with gunfire, they were shot and killed by the army.
The army admitted it lost a “Sky Rider” drone after it was shot down by Palestinian fighters. “There is no fear of leaking information,” it said.
“He went down to play”
Shortly after the Ministry of Health announced the death of the three fighters, 14-year-old Walid Saad Nassar succumbed to his injuries after he was shot on Tuesday during a wide-scale Israeli military invasion of the city of Jenin that killed six Palestinians that afternoon, most of whom were fighters.
Walid’s father Saad told Palestinian media that his son had gone down to play with his friends in the neighborhood.
“I was sitting in our yard, then I saw the kids running,” he recounted. “I asked what’s going on, and one of them said ‘Walid was shot’. I started looking for him but I couldn’t see him.”
Saad Nassar says his cousin witnessed the scene, and that Walid was sheltering in a shed as the Israeli convoy was withdrawing. “He said a soldier opened the military jeep and fired directly at Walid. Walid was shot in the abdomen and fell down.”
A total of seven Palestinians were killed as a result of the invasion, including Walid, and 16 were injured.
The Ministry of Health identified the other fatalities as 26-year-old Mohammad Wael Ghazawi, 27-year-old Tariq Ziad Natour, 29-year-old Ziad Amin Al-Zaarini, 49-year-old Abdel-Fattah Hussein Kharousheh, 22-year-old Mutasem Nasser Sabbagh, and 22-year-old Mohammad Ahmad Khlouf.
Armed confrontations
Even as Jenin refugee camp is still recovering from a bloody invasion on 26 January that killed ten residents of the camp including two children and a 60-year-old woman, Tuesday’s invasion was described by residents as “one of the most vicious” the camp has witnessed so far.
Coinciding with the end of the school day, a special forces unit infiltrated the camp in a large refrigerator truck before a large Israeli convoy invaded the rest of the camp, according to sources on the ground.
Confrontations with residents as well as armed confrontations with local fighters broke out.
Armed group the Jenin Brigade said in a statement that its members “confronted the occupation forces with bullets and homemade explosive devices.” The group also its fighters shot down two drones.
Homes targeted with anti-tank missiles
Over the course of the two-and-a-half-hour invasion, the Israeli army laid siege to two houses and fired “Energa” anti-tank missiles at them. One of the houses was believed to be sheltering a group of fighters, while the other housed a family of nine.
Mobile phone footage shared on social media shows heavy smoke rising from the camp during the invasion.
40-year-old Assri Fayad, the owner of one of the two houses targeted by an anti-tank missile, told Al Jazeera: “Around 2:20 PM, I was about to leave the house when we heard loud sounds in the proximity of the house, and my wife shouted ‘special forces!’”
Fayad moved his family to a room on the other side of the house, away from the nearby sound of heavy gunfire.
“When the gunfire got heavier, we could smell tear gas,” he recounts. “The house was being targeted. I moved us to a 2-meter-square bathroom, then we heard the sound of an explosion. They targeted the house with an Energa missile while we were trapped inside.”
According to Al-Jazeera, 29-year-old Ziad Al-Zar’ini was killed on the front steps of the Fayad home.
Army says it killed Huwara attacker
Immediately next to the Fayad home, the Israeli military besieged a house belonging to Eyad Abu Al-Azmi where 49-year-old Abdel-Fattah Kharousheh was sheltering. The army says Kharousheh was the perpetrator of a shooting attack that killed two Israeli settlers in Huwara on 26 February.
According to eyewitness testimonies reported by Al-Jazeera, the Israeli military surrounded Abu al-Azmi’s house and ordered him to leave because of “the presence of a number of wanted men”. The army then fired a missile at the entrance as Abu al-Azmi was leaving the house, forcing him to take shelter behind a wall.
The army targeted the house with multiple shells and missiles, according to residents. Kharousheh was killed in the sheeling.
According to local media, Kharousheh is one of the leaders of the Hamas movement in Askar refugee camp in Nablus and was released from Israeli prisons two months ago following a 40-month detention. Kharousheh spent a total of eight years in Israeli prisons.
Jerusalem24 is still working the determine the circumstances surrounding the killing of the other fighters and residents of the camp.
Medical crews targeted
Jenin Governmental Hospital was targeted with tear gas during the invasion, forcing patients and medical staff to evacuate a wing of the hospital.
Inside the camp, Palestinian Red Crescent ambulances and crews were targeted with live ammunition and prevented from reaching the injured.
Mahmoud Al-Saadi, director of the Red Crescent in Jenin, said an ambulance was targeted with Israeli sniper fire when it responded to a call in the Samran neighborhood. “The paramedics tried to move slowly and tentatively at first,” he said, explaining that the intensity of the fire made movement difficult.
“The Israeli army ordered the paramedics to turn back,” he said. “Immediately after they tried, they [the army] started shooting directly at them.”
“The paramedics survived, but the ambulance is damaged and not currently in service.”
The Israeli military routinely targets medical crews and hospitals, preventing them from treating the injured, damaging medical equipment, and injuring emergency workers.
