A mosque damaged during an Israeli military operation in the northern West Bank, on Thursday. Photo: AP/ Getty Images
Israel’s military stormed a mosque in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, where it said weapons were being stored, and engaged in gun battles that left at least five Palestinians dead, including a young militant commander whom Israel says was responsible for attacks against Israeli civilians.
It was the second straight day of an Israeli incursion into the northern West Bank, focused in and around the cities of Tulkarm and Jenin, involving columns of armoured vehicles, fleets of drones and hundreds of troops. The raids are Israel’s biggest military action in the West Bank in more than a year.
The commander killed in Thursday’s fighting, Muhammad Jaber, who died in a clash in Tulkarm, led the local branch of the militant group Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which confirmed his death. Palestinian Islamic Jihad, like its ally, Hamas, receives financial support, weapons and training from Iran, according to the U.S. State Department.
The raid in the West Bank is an escalation along a third front for Israel, in addition to the war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and the increased air attacks across its northern border with Lebanon against the militant group Hezbollah, which is also backed by Iran.
Wafa, the Palestinian Authority’s official news agency, said 17 people had been killed in total in the raids across the West Bank that began before dawn on Wednesday, without specifying whether militants were among them. The Israeli military said that 16 militants had been killed across the West Bank.
Residents of Tulkarm and the surrounding area on Thursday described hunkering down in their homes, with internet and telephone services down, afraid to venture into streets that were watched over by Israeli snipers perched on rooftops. Riyad Awad, the head of the city council in Tulkarm, said that parts of the city — and all of Nur Shams, a neighbouring community — were without water and sewage service.
Israeli bulldozers ripped up roads to unearth improvised explosive devices. Troops entered people’s homes, in what the military described as searches for weapons, militants and vantage points for watching over the city.
The Israeli military says its operation in the West Bank is targeting Palestinian militant strongholds. Israeli officials have told the United States that the operation was likely to last at least through Friday, a senior U.S. official said. It was not clear whether the United States had received prior notice of the operation.
Israeli forces had repeatedly staged smaller raids in both cities in recent months as the conflict escalated in the West Bank, where about three million Palestinians live under Israeli occupation. More than 600 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel, both in military strikes and at the hands of extremist Jewish settlers, according to the UN.
The exact circumstances of the deaths of the five in Tulkarm on Thursday morning were not completely clear, with differing accounts that The New York Times could not independently verify.
Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, an Israeli military spokesman, said Mr. Jaber and four other militants were exchanging fire with Israeli troops from within a mosque and near a mosque before they were killed by Israeli forces.
In a statement confirming Mr Jaber’s death, Islamic Jihad said that he had been killed after a “heroic confrontation” with Israeli forces. Its local branch in Tulkarm said in a separate statement that after Mr. Jaber had been killed, its fighters detonated an explosive device and shot at Israeli forces, causing “direct injuries.”
Faisal Salameh, head of the services committee in the part of Tulkarm that originated as a refugee camp, said that Mr Jaber and the others had been killed in a strike around 5 a.m. while they were hiding in a home next to a mosque. He said the Israeli forces took Mr. Jaber’s body, along with the bodies of two others killed, and detained a man whose leg had been broken.
In addition to his role with Islamic Jihad, Mr. Jaber also commanded a loose collective of militants in Tulkarm, including the Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. The Israeli military accused him in a statement of being involved in “numerous terror attacks,” including the murder of an Israeli civilian in June.
Mr. Jaber, a man in his mid-20s who used the nom de guerre Abu Shujaa, or Father of the Brave, gained a kind of cult status in April after the Israeli military announced that it had killed him during a raid. Three days later, he emerged alive at the funeral of other Palestinians killed during that same raid, to joyous shouts from residents.
Gheith Shawesh, a 17-year-old resident of Nur Shams, lamented Mr Jaber’s death, saying that people across the West Bank were “angry and sad” about his killing.
He called the raid the “most aggressive” on Nur Shams in years. He said that Israeli forces were blowing off the doors of homes and searching them, rounding up suspects and holding them in seized shops, and cutting up the tarps that hang over some alleyways, concealing militants from Israeli drones overhead.
Explosions were also heard on Thursday in Jenin, where Israeli troops were operating in the eastern part of the city, Wafa reported. The Palestinian Red Crescent said that it had lost contact with the emergency medical services there because communications were down.
Mohammad Al-Sayed, a member of the Jenin city council, said that most communications to the city were down and that movement on the street was being prevented. “The situation is very dangerous, everyone is afraid,” he said
Source: The New York Times
以色列約旦河西岸攻擊造成17人死亡，其中包括一名武裝分子指揮官
以色列軍隊週四襲擊了被佔領的約旦河西岸的一座清真寺，據稱那裡存放著武器，並進行了槍戰，造成至少五名巴勒斯坦人死亡，其中包括一名年輕的武裝指揮官，以色列稱他應對襲擊以色列平民負責。
這是以色列連續第二天入侵西岸北部，重點是圖勒凱爾姆和傑寧市及其周邊地區，涉及裝甲車縱隊、無人機艦隊和數百名士兵。 這次攻擊是以色列一年多來在約旦河西岸最大規模的軍事行動。
在周四的戰鬥中喪生的指揮官穆罕默德·賈比爾在圖勒凱爾姆的一場衝突中喪生，他領導著激進組織巴勒斯坦伊斯蘭聖戰組織的當地分支，該組織證實了他的死亡。 據美國國務院稱，巴勒斯坦伊斯蘭聖戰組織與其盟友哈馬斯一樣，從伊朗獲得財政支持、武器和訓練。
除了與加薩走廊哈馬斯的戰爭，以及越過與黎巴嫩北部邊境對激進組織真主黨的空襲增加之外，約旦河西岸的襲擊是以色列第三條戰線的升級，真主黨也得到了以色列的支持。伊朗。
巴勒斯坦權力機構的官方通訊社瓦法表示，週三黎明前開始的橫跨約旦河西岸的襲擊共有 17 人死亡，但沒有具體說明其中是否有武裝分子。 以色列軍方稱，約旦河西岸有16名武裝份子被打死。
週四，圖勒凱爾姆及週邊地區的居民表示，他們躲在家裡，網路和電話服務都中斷了，他們不敢冒險進入屋頂上有以色列狙擊手監視的街道。 圖勒凱爾姆市議會主席 Riyad Awad 表示，該市部分地區以及鄰近社區努爾沙姆斯的全部地區都沒有供水和污水處理服務。
以色列推土機拆毀道路挖掘簡易爆炸裝置。 軍隊進入人們的家中，軍方稱其目的是搜尋武器、武裝分子和監視城市的有利位置。
以色列軍方表示，其在約旦河西岸的行動目標是巴勒斯坦武裝份子的據點。 一位美國高級官員表示，以色列官員告訴美國，這次行動可能至少持續到週五。 目前尚不清楚美國是否事先收到了這項行動的通知。
近幾個月來，隨著約旦河西岸衝突升級，以色列軍隊多次在這兩個城市發動小規模攻擊，約旦河西岸約有 300 萬巴勒斯坦人生活在以色列佔領下。 據聯合國稱，自 10 月 7 日哈馬斯領導的對以色列的襲擊以來，已有 600 多名巴勒斯坦人在約旦河西岸喪生，既有軍事襲擊，也有極端猶太定居者殺害。
週四上午圖勒凱爾姆五人死亡的具體情況尚不完全清楚，《紐約時報》無法獨立核實不同的說法。
以色列軍方發言人納達夫·肖沙尼中校表示，賈比爾和其他四名武裝分子在一座清真寺內和一座清真寺附近與以色列軍隊交火，隨後被以色列軍隊擊斃。
伊斯蘭聖戰組織在一份確認賈比爾死亡的聲明中表示，他在與以色列軍隊的「英勇對抗」後被殺。 其在圖勒凱爾姆的當地分支機構在另一份聲明中表示，賈比爾被殺後，其武裝人員引爆了爆炸裝置並向以色列軍隊開槍，造成「直接傷害」。
圖勒凱爾姆地區服務委員會主席費薩爾·薩拉梅 (Faisal Salameh) 表示，賈比爾和其他人在凌晨 5 點左右的一次罷工中喪生，當時他們躲在一座清真寺旁的家中。 他說，以色列軍隊帶走了賈比爾的屍體以及另外兩人被殺的屍體，並拘留了一名腿部骨折的男子。
除了在伊斯蘭聖戰組織中發揮的作用外，賈比爾還指揮著圖勒凱爾姆的一個鬆散的武裝分子組織，其中包括阿克薩烈士旅。
以色列軍方在一份聲明中指控他參與了“多起恐怖襲擊”，其中包括六月謀殺一名以色列平民的事件。
賈比爾是一名20 多歲的男子，化名阿布·舒賈(Abu Shujaa)，即「勇敢者之父」。了某種崇拜。 三天后，他在同一次襲擊中喪生的其他巴勒斯坦人的葬禮上生還，引起了居民的歡呼。
努爾舍姆斯 (Nur Shams) 17 歲居民蓋思·沙韋什 (Gheith Shawesh) 對賈比爾的死表示哀悼，稱西岸人民對他的遇害感到“憤怒和悲傷”。
他稱這次襲擊是多年來對努爾沙姆斯「最具侵略性」的一次。 他說，以色列軍隊炸毀了民宅的門並進行搜查，圍捕嫌疑人並將他們關押在被查封的商店裡，並撕毀了一些小巷上懸掛的防水布，以隱藏武裝分子，使其免受以色列無人機的襲擊。
據瓦法報道，週四傑寧也聽到爆炸聲，以色列軍隊正在該市東部執行任務。 巴勒斯坦紅新月會表示，由於通訊中斷，它與當地的緊急醫療服務部門失去了聯繫。
傑寧市議會成員穆罕默德·賽義德表示，與該市的大部分通訊都中斷了，街上的活動受到阻礙。 「情況非常危險，每個人都很害怕，」他說。
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