Israeli forces yesterday killed a local commander of the Islamist movement Hamas in the flashpoint city of Jenin, as they pressed a major operation in the occupied West Bank for a third day, the Israeli military said.
The military said border police forces had killed Wassem Hazem, who it said was the head of Hamas in Jenin and was involved in shooting and bombing attacks in the Palestinian territory.
Two other Hamas gunmen who tried to escape from the car they were traveling in were killed by a drone, it said, adding that weapons, explosives and large sums of cash were found in the car.
Photo: AFP / Israeli Army
Hamas confirmed the death of all three men, who it said were members of its al-Qassam Brigades armed wing.
The incident occurred as Israeli forces kept up a large-scale operation involving hundreds of troops and police that was launched in the early hours of Wednesday morning in Jenin and Tulkarm, another volatile city in the northern West Bank, as well as the Jordan Valley.
Israeli armored personnel carriers backed by helicopters and drones yesterday pushed into Jenin and Tulkarm while armored bulldozers plowed up roads to destroy roadside bombs planted by the militant groups.
In related news, UN officials are preparing to launch a polio vaccination campaign in Gaza tomorrow that would rely on a series of limited pauses in fighting between Israeli forces and Hamas militants holding out in the besieged enclave.
The WHO said it would need to vaccinate at least 90 percent of the children in Gaza for the campaign to succeed, but it faces huge challenges in the Palestinian enclave, which has been largely destroyed by nearly 11 months of war.
The campaign has been organized after the WHO on Friday last week said that a baby had been paralyzed by the type 2 polio virus, the first such case in the territory in 25 years, and UN agencies appealed for an urgent vaccination effort.
About 1.2 million vaccine doses have already been delivered to Gaza ahead of the campaign, which aims to vaccinate more than 640,000 children, a WHO official said yesterday. An additional 400,000 doses are en route to the territory, said Rik Peeperkorn, the WHO’s representative for the occupied Palestinian territories.
The planned pauses are unconnected with negotiations that have been under way for months to try to agree a halt in the fighting in Gaza and a return of Israeli and foreign hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
COGAT, the Israeli agency that coordinates administration in the occupied Palestinian territories, said the pauses would be coordinated as part of a series of humanitarian pauses implemented periodically since the start of the Israeli campaign in Gaza in October last year.
Hamas has also agreed to the pauses, which the UN says are needed for the campaign to begin at all. A second round of vaccinations will be needed once the first round is complete.
The WHO has said the Israeli military and Hamas have agreed to three separate, zoned three-day pauses in fighting to allow the first round of vaccinations to be undertaken by UN agencies in coordination with the Palestinian health ministry.
More than 2,180 staff have been trained to provide vaccinations and information about the campaign to people in Gaza.
The pauses, due to run for three days between 6am and 3pm, are to begin in central Gaza, before moving to south and then northern Gaza. However, due to the logistical and security challenges facing the campaign, an extra day might be needed for each round, WHO officials have said.
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