Israeli forces have killed two Palestinian militants in the occupied West Bank during a raid on the northern city of Nablus, Israeli and Palestinian officials have said.
The Palestinian health ministry announced “two martyrs and three injured as a result of the occupation aggression on Nablus”.
The Israeli army said there had been no injuries among its forces. It said it had entered Nablus to arrest two individuals over a shooting at police earlier this month in a West Bank settlement that resulted in no casualties.
The Palestinian health ministry in a statement identified the two dead as Khairi Shaheen, 34, and Hamza Maqbul, 32, who the army said “were killed following an exchange of fire with security forces”.
Witnesses told Agence France-Presse that Israeli troops entered Nablus on Friday morning and surrounded a house in the Old City, a stronghold of armed Palestinian groups, before calling on those inside to turn themselves in.
The Abu Ali Mustapha Brigades, the armed wing of the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, claimed Shaheen and Maqbul as its members.
Friday’s raid came amid a rising tide of violence in the region.
On Thursday, an Israeli soldier was shot dead by a Palestinian attacker near Nablus. The Israeli army said the assailant had been shot, but his condition remained unclear. The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas claimed the shooting, calling it a reaction to an Israeli raid on a Jenin refugee camp.
Israel launched its raid on the Jenin refugee camp on Monday, its largest operation in years in the West Bank, which it has occupied since 1967. Twelve Palestinians and one Israeli soldier were killed during the large-scale raid, which lasted more than 48 hours and ended on Wednesday.
The UN secretary-general, António Guterres, on Thursday told reporters in New York “there was an excessive force used by Israeli forces”. Israel has “legitimate concerns over its security”, he said, “but escalation is not the answer. It simply bolsters radicalisation and leads to a deepening cycle of violence and bloodshed.”
Violence linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict this year has killed at least 192 Palestinians, 27 Israelis, one Ukrainian and an Italian, according to an AFP tally compiled from official sources from both sides. They include, on the Palestinian side, combatants and civilians, and on the Israeli side, mostly civilians and three members of the Arab minority.
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