Fatah has urged a retaliatory “day of rage” in after the Israeli Defence Forces killed four terror suspects and wounded 44 others in a refugee camp raid on Wednesday.
It comes just days after a PA security official was killed after firing at soldiers near a West Bank crossing, an incident that already followed months of spiraling tensions between Israel and Palestinian militant groups in the West Bank.
The Jerusalem Post reports that Wednesday’s fatalities have been named as Rahman Hazem, the brother of Ra'ad Hazem, the Palestinian terrorist who committed April’s Dizengoff shooting attack, along with PA security service member Ahmad Alawneh. Muhammad al-Wana and Muhammad Abu Naasa were also identified.
The brother of the terrorist who attacked a bar on Tel Aviv's Dizengoff Street in April has reportedly been killed in a shootout with Israeli security forces in Jenin pic.twitter.com/PkalepDNqG
— i24NEWS English (@i24NEWS_EN) September 28, 2022
The IDF and Border Police say they surrounded a residence in the Jenin refugee camp in an attempt to arrest two suspects. Suspects in the camp threw an explosive at Israeli forces who then retaliated with gunfire, killing the suspects.
Two of the suspects had been involved in recent shooting attacks, including the targeting of a Defence Ministry vehicle near Jalameh earlier this month, and the pair were reportedly planning further violence.
The siblings’ father, Fathi Hazem, and other relatives had reportedly been evading authorities in the months following April’s shooting with Fathi having made successive incitements to violence in footage published by Palestinian media.
Nabil Abu Rudeina, a spokesperson for the PA president Mahmoud Abbas, lashed out at the raid in a statement earlier today.
He alleged that Israel had been "tampering with security and stability by continuing its policy of escalation" and claimed that "condemnations alone are no longer enough."
"This dangerous Israeli escalation will not give legitimacy, security, and stability to Israel, whether in the Islamic and Christian holy sites or in Jenin or other occupied Palestinian territories," he continued.
He also argued that "Israel is still a state outside international law, and that Israel and the United States of America have lost their credibility by demanding calm and maintaining stability, and on the ground, they practice all forms of escalation, killing, and destruction against the Palestinian people, their land and their holy sites."
"Condemnations alone are no longer enough because the occupation still insists on crossing all red lines, whether in Jerusalem, Jenin, Nablus, and the rest of the occupied Palestinian territories,” adding that: “the Israeli occupation must understand that the will and determination of the Palestinian people are stronger than the occupation and its tyranny."
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said Israeli security forces “acted with determination” on Wednesday morning “in order to arrest a number of terrorists involved in planning attacks to kill Israelis, including the brother of the killer from the shooting attack on Dizengoff Street, who planned to continue the path of blood and death."
"We will not be deterred and will not hesitate to act against anyone who tries to raise his hand against the citizens of Israel and the security forces," he stated via Twitter.
כוחות הבטחון פעלו הבוקר בנחישות במטרה לעצור מספר מחבלים המעורבים בתכנון פיגועים לרצח ישראלים, ביניהם גם אחיו של הרוצח מפיגוע הירי ברחוב דיזינגוף, שתכנן להמשיך את נתיב הדם והמוות.
— יאיר לפיד - Yair Lapid (@yairlapid) September 28, 2022
