Israeli army carried out deadly ‘anti-terrorist’ raid on Nour Shams camp

ZAIN JAAFAR / AFP

The Israeli raid was carried out between Thursday and Saturday on the Nour Shams camp, near Tulkarem in the occupied West Bank.

INTERNATIONAL – A raid “ anti-terrorist » according to Israel. At a time when exchanges of strikes from Tel Aviv and Tehran are attracting attention, the Israeli army carried out a large-scale deadly raid in the occupied West Bank in a few days, as reported by the Palestinian Red Crescent and AFP journalists, present on site.

This Saturday, April 20, members of the Palestinian Red Crescent also announced the death of 14 people during this Israeli military operation which began on Thursday evening in the Nour Shams camp, in the north of the Palestinian territory. An initial toll slightly higher than that announced by Israel, which mentioned ten terrorists killed and eight prisoners in this camp. during clashes “.

Unprecedented, this type of Israeli raid mainly targets Palestinian armed groups, even if observers of the operation on the Nour Shams camp recall that civilians are often among the victims during this type of attack.

Present on site, but kept at a good distance, AFP journalists testified to explosions and recurring shootings, house-to-house raids in several neighborhoods of the camp, but also bombings on at least three homes, proof of the significant military force deployed on site. Still according to AFP, this often deadly Israeli raid ended Saturday evening, after 48 hours of incursion.

Worrying intensification

In a human assessment of the operation, the Ministry of Health of the Palestinian Authority mentions for its part “several people killed and eleven injured inside the camp”. But above all he evokes the attitude of the Israeli army towards the wounded : “the army prevents medical teams from helping the injured”.

“This incursion is unprecedented”, assured AFP Muayad Shaaban, head of the Commission for Resistance to Colonization and the Wall, an entity dependent on the Palestinian Authority. He also mentions “snipers on the roofs and special forces deployed” to report the impossibility of leaving the camp, while many inhabitants of this camp of 7,000 people are deprived of electricity and are beginning to lack food.

“The Israelis want to silence Palestinian resistance in the West Bank, especially in the northern camps” of the territory, also accused Hassan Khuraisha, a Palestinian deputy, interviewed by AFPTV.

It must be said that the Nour-Shams raid takes place in a context of intensification of violence in the West Bank – Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967 – since the start of the war in the Gaza Strip triggered by the attack of Hamas on October 7. At least 480 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers in the West Bank since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas. Conversely, over the same period, only nine Israelis, including five members of the security forces, were killed in the West Bank, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

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