JERUSALEM: Israeli troops conducted a series of arrest raids against suspected Hamas militants across the occupied West Bank early Sunday, sparking a pair of gunbattles in which five Palestinians were killed and two Israeli soldiers were seriously wounded.
It was the deadliest violence between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants in the West Bank in several weeks. The region has seen an increase in fighting in recent months, with tensions fueled by Israeli settlement construction, heightened militant activity in the northern West Bank and the aftermath of a bloody war between Israel and Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip last May.
Israeli officials said they had been tracking the Hamas militants for several weeks and that the raids were launched in response to immediate threats.
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said the militants were about to carry out attacks “in real time.” He praised the Israeli forces, saying they acted “as expected. They engaged the enemy and we back them completely.”
Lt. Col. Amnon Shefler, an Israeli army spokesperson, said Israeli forces came under fire while carrying out the arrest raids. He said at least four Hamas operatives were killed and several others were arrested in the overnight operation.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said two Palestinians were shot dead near the northern West Bank city of Jenin and three others were killed in Biddu, north of Jerusalem. The Israeli military said an officer and soldier suffered serious injuries during the arrest in Burqin, near Jenin, and were airlifted to a hospital for medical treatment.
Hamas confirmed that four of the dead, including all three killed in Biddu, were members of the Islamic militant group. Palestinian officials said a 16-year-old boy was also among the dead, though it was not immediately known if he was a militant.
The Palestinian Authority, which administers semi-autonomous areas in the West Bank, condemned the killings and said the Israeli government was “fully and directly responsible for this bloody morning and the crimes committed by the occupation forces.”
But Hamas also criticized the Palestinian Authority, which maintains security coordination with Israel in a shared struggle against the Islamic group.
Hamas spokesman Abdulatif Al-Qanou said that recent meetings between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli officials “encouraged the occupation again to pursue the resistance.”
Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip after seizing it from the Palestinian Authority in 2007, praised those killed as “heroic martyrs.” It called on its supporters to “devise tactics and means that harm the enemy and drain it with all possible forms of resistance.”
Also Sunday, Israel released Khalida Jarrar, a prominent Palestinian lawmaker, after nearly two years in prison. Jarrar, a senior figure in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, has been in and out of Israeli prisons for years — often without being charged.
The PFLP has an armed wing and is considered a terrorist group by Israel and Western countries, but Jarrar has not been implicated in attacks. She was sentenced to two years in prison in March for membership in a banned group but given credit for time already served. She was freed several weeks before her sentence was to end.
Recent months have seen a rise in violence in the West Bank, with more than two dozen Palestinians killed in sporadic clashes with Israeli troops and during protests.
Many of the clashes have occurred near Beita, a Palestinian village where residents regularly demonstrate against an unauthorized settlement outpost, and near Jenin, which is known as a militant stronghold.
Last month, Israeli troops clashed with Palestinian gunmen during a late night raid in Jenin, killing four Palestinians. Sunday’s clashes came a week after Israel recaptured the last of six Palestinian fugitives who tunneled out of a maximum-security Israeli prison earlier this month. The escapees were from Jenin, and two were caught there after an extensive search.
Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war and has established dozens of settlements where nearly 500,000 settlers reside. The Palestinians seek the West Bank as part of their future state and view the settlements as a major obstacle to resolving the conflict.
Israeli troops kill 5 Palestinians in West Bank gun battles
https://arab.news/vnr2a
Israeli troops kill 5 Palestinians in West Bank gun battles
- Deadliest violence between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants in the West Bank in several weeks
- Hamas confirmed that four of the dead were members of the militant group
Tunisia’s famed blue-and-white village threatened after record rains
SIDI BOU SAID, Tunisia: Perched on a hill overlooking Carthage, Tunisia’s famed blue-and-white village of Sidi Bou Said now faces the threat of landslides, after record rainfall tore through parts of its slopes.
Last week, Tunisia saw its heaviest downpour in more than 70 years. The storm killed at least five people, with others still missing.
Narrow streets of this village north of Tunis — famed for its pink bougainvillea and studded wooden doors — were cut off by fallen trees, rocks and thick clay. Even more worryingly for residents, parts of the hillside have broken loose.
“The situation is delicate” and “requires urgent intervention,” Mounir Riabi, the regional director of civil defense in Tunis, recently told AFP.
“Some homes are threatened by imminent danger,” he said.
Authorities have banned heavy vehicles from driving into the village and ordered some businesses and institutions to close, such as the Ennejma Ezzahra museum.
- Scared -
Fifty-year-old Maya, who did not give her full name, said she was forced to leave her century-old family villa after the storm.
“Everything happened very fast,” she recalled. “I was with my mother and, suddenly, extremely violent torrents poured down.”
“I saw a mass of mud rushing toward the house, then the electricity cut off. I was really scared.”
Her Moorish-style villa sustained significant damage.
One worker on site, Said Ben Farhat, said waterlogged earth sliding from the hillside destroyed part of a kitchen wall.
“Another rainstorm and it will be a catastrophe,” he said.
Shop owners said the ban on heavy vehicles was another blow to their businesses, as they usually rely on tourist buses to bring in traffic.
When President Kais Saied visited the village on Wednesday, vendors were heard shouting: “We want to work.”
One trader, Mohamed Fedi, told AFP afterwards there were “no more customers.”
“We have closed shop,” he said, adding that the shops provide a livelihood to some 200 families.
- Highly unstable -
Beyond its famous architecture, the village also bears historical and spiritual significance.
The village was named after a 12th-century Sufi saint, Abu Said Al-Baji, who had established a religious center there. His shrine still sits atop the hill.
The one-time home of French philosopher Michel Foucault and writer Andre Gide, the village is protected under Tunisian preservation law, pending a UNESCO decision on its bid for World Heritage status.
Experts say solutions to help preserve Sidi Bou Said could include restricting new development, building more retaining walls and improving drainage to prevent runoff from accumulating.
Chokri Yaich, a geologist speaking to Tunisian radio Mosaique FM, said climate change has made protecting the hill increasingly urgent, warning of more storms like last week’s.
The hill’s clay-rich soil loses up to two thirds of its cohesion when saturated with water, making it highly unstable, Yaich explained.
He also pointed to marine erosion and the growing weight of urbanization, saying that construction had increased by about 40 percent over the past three decades.
For now, authorities have yet to announce a protection plan, leaving home and shop owners anxious, as the weather remains unpredictable.
