Three Palestinians were killed yesterday in an Israeli army raid in a West Bank refugee camp, Palestinian health officials said, while the administration of US President Joe Biden sharply condemned Israel’s latest act of settlement expansion.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health said that the three men were killed during a raid in Balata, a refugee camp near the city of Nablus.
Six people were wounded, including one who was in critical condition, the ministry said.
Photo: AFP
The Israeli army later confirmed that soldiers had raided Balata.
It said troops came under fire and killed three Palestinians.
Israel has stepped up raids in response to a spate of Palestinian attacks and said yesterday’s operations netted weapons and an explosives manufacturing operation in a home, which it detonated.
Meanwhile, the Biden administration on Sunday issued a sharply worded statement criticizing Israel for moving to re-establish settlers at the formerly evacuated outpost of Homesh in the northern West Bank.
The Israeli government in March repealed a 2005 act that dismantled four West Bank settlements. Over the weekend, the top Israeli army general in the West Bank signed an order attaching Homesh to a local settler regional council — a move paving the way for reconstruction of the outpost.
The US was “deeply troubled” by what US Department of State spokesman Mathew Miller said was Israel’s illegal policy on the outpost in the occupied territory.
Miller also expressed Washington’s concerns about Israeli Minister of National Security Itmar Ben-Gvir’s visit to the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism.
The contested site is also home to the al-Aqsa Mosque, the third-holiest site in Islam.
“This holy space should not be used for political purposes, and we call on all parties to respect its sanctity,” Miller said in the statement.
Under longstanding arrangements, Jews are permitted to visit the site, but not to pray there. However, a growing number of Jewish visitors have begun to quietly pray, raising fears among Palestinians that Israel is plotting to divide or take over the site. Ben-Gvir has long called for increased Jewish access.
Ben-Gvir visited the hilltop compound on Sunday, declaring that “we are in charge,” while the Israeli Cabinet held a rare meeting in Jerusalem’s Old City to celebrate its control of the area. Ben-Gvir’s visit drew condemnations from the Palestinians and Israel’s neighbor, Jordan.
More than 250 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since spring last year. About 50 people have been killed in Palestinian attacks against Israelis.
Israel says most of the Palestinians killed were militants, but stone-throwing Palestinians protesting the incursions and people not involved in the confrontations have also been killed.
Israelis last week marked Jerusalem Day, which celebrates Israel’s capture of east Jerusalem, including the Old City, in a 1967 war. Flag-waving nationalists marched through the main Palestinian thoroughfare in Jerusalem’s Old City, some singing racist anti-Arab chants, while hundreds of Jews visited the sensitive hilltop shrine.
Israel also captured the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 war. The Palestinians seek those territories for a future independent state, with east Jerusalem as its capital.
Israel annexed east Jerusalem in a move unrecognized by most of the international community and considers the city its undivided, permanent capital.
Tensions at the disputed compound have fueled past rounds of violence.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, the most right-wing in Israeli history, includes ultra-Orthodox and far-right nationalist parties, and has made West Bank settlement construction a top priority.
Most of the international community considers Israeli settlements, home to 700,000 people in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, to be illegal and obstacles to peace.
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