3 killed, 45 wounded in Israeli operation on West Bank

Jerusalem, Jun 19 (EFE).- At least three Palestinians were killed and 45 wounded on Monday during an Israeli forces operation in the occupied West Bank.

Palestinian Health Ministry said a 15-year-old teenager was among the three people killed in the operation.

Seventeen of the wounded persons were hit by gunshots and ten of them were in serious condition, including a young girl “with a critical injury to the head,” it said.

An Israeli Army spokesperson confirmed in a statement that the military operation in Jenin was aimed to “arrest two suspects.”

“During the operation, a massive exchange of fire took place between the forces and armed militiamen. A large number of explosive devices were thrown at the (Israeli) forces. The forces responded with live fire,” he said. “Several suspects were hit.”

“When the security forces were leaving the city, a military vehicle was hit by an explosive device, damaging the vehicle,” it added.

The Jenin Battalion, which brings together different Palestinian factions in the refugee camp, confirmed that their militiamen responded “to the aggression of the occupation.”

The official Palestinian Wafa news agency reported that for the first time since 2002, an Israeli Apache warplane bombed an area in the Jabriyat neighborhood of Jenin.

Footage released by Israeli media showed an area close to a building being struck several times by helicopter missiles, the first such airstrike in the West Bank in nearly two decades.

In the early 2000s, during the Second Intifada, the Israeli forces used attack helicopters in the West Bank more frequently, but only under special circumstances.

Wafa added that Israeli forces also arrested 14 Palestinians during the operation in various neighborhoods of the occupied West Bank.

Eyewitnesses told Wafa that Israeli soldiers also broke into the home of suspect Musab al-Barmaki in the Jabriyat neighborhood of Jenin, using its residents as a human shield.

Meanwhile, the Red Crescent emergency services denounced that the Israeli forces have attacked their two ambulances with live bullets.

“An Israeli military vehicle intentionally collided with an ambulance from the front,” it said, adding the Israeli forces also “prevented ambulances from reaching the victims in Jenin.”

The Palestinian health ministry identified those killed as Ahmed Yousef Saqr, 15, Khaled Azam Asasa, 21, and Qasam Abu Sariya, 29.

According to Wafa, the Palestinian Cabinet “strongly condemned” the operation.

“The international silence and double standards encourage the Israeli government to practice more killing, destruction and intimidation against our people, and as long as the Israel forces, the occupying power, will not be held accountable for their crimes, such aggression and assault will continue,” it said in a statement.

This year has been the deadliest year in the Palestine-Israel conflict since the Second Intifada from 2000 to 2005.

So far this year, 128 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank and Israel, most of them militants, in violent clashes with Israeli troops as well as civilians, including 22 minors.

On the Israeli side, 21 people have died in attacks by Palestinians, most of them settlers, including three minors. EFE