RAMALLAH: There was widespread condemnation on Monday as two Palestinian men were killed by Israeli troops in an army raid in the occupied West Bank city of Nablus. 

Palestinian factions and the governor of Nablus announced a strike in the city to protest the killings.

In Nablus, the Israeli army also arrested two others and injured 55 other citizens with tear gas during its military incursion into the city as violence and tension escalated in the occupied territories.

Palestinian medical sources confirmed that the army killed Mohammed Al-Hallaq and Mohammed Abu Baker during the incursion, which lasted a few hours.

The latest deaths bring the number of Palestinians killed by the Israeli military since the beginning of this year to 93. At least three of them were killed during Ramadan.

Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh condemned the killings.

“The killings and crimes committed by the occupation soldiers and settlers do not stop,” he said, adding that they are part of a “systematic policy embraced” by the occupation.

Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesman for the Palestinian presidency, said that the Israeli authorities’ continuation of settlement expansions, killings, and incursions into the Al-Aqsa Mosque confirm that they are striving to escalate tensions and drag the region into a cycle of violence.

Meanwhile, with the approach of the Jewish Passover on Wednesday, Israeli extremists have vowed to slaughter their offerings inside Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir called on his supporters to storm Al-Aqsa Mosque in large numbers on Wednesday.

On Monday, 103 settlers stormed the mosque under protection from the Israeli police and performed Talmudic rituals near the Bab Al-Rahma area and in front of the Dome of the Rock.

The Temple Mount Movement groups continued to mobilize their supporters in an attempt to slaughter Jewish Passover offerings inside Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Rudeineh warned against the continuation of settler incursions into Al-Aqsa Mosque and attacks on worshippers.

He stressed that these attacks constitute a dangerous escalation and said that Israeli authorities would be held responsible for these continuous attacks on the Palestinian people.

The spokesman called on the international community — especially the US administration — to intervene and place pressure on the Israeli government to stop its crimes against the Palestinian people before the situation worsened.

Shtayyeh also condemned the settlers’ continued incursions into Al-Aqsa Mosque, their calls to slaughter sacrifices in its courtyards, and the arrests of Muslim worshipers in the mosque during Ramadan.

During a government session on Monday in Ramallah, the prime minister said that Israeli authorities were pushing worshipers away from Al-Aqsa using intimidation and restrictions on the passage of people through checkpoints and gates.

Hatem Al-Bakri, minister of religious affairs for the Palestinian Authority, described the measures taken by the Israeli occupation authorities against Al-Aqsa Mosque and worshipers during Ramadan as perilous.

“The Israeli government is planning to enable extremist settlers to slaughter sacrifices inside Al-Aqsa Mosque. The continued settler incursions and Israeli police attacks on worshipers will drag the region into a hazardous situation,” Al-Bakri told Arab News.

The minister said that Israel was seeking to deter Muslims from worshipping at the mosque but added that Palestinians would never accept this.

Al-Bakri said that the Israeli occupation stormed Al-Aqsa 25 times last month.

Khaled al-Kurdi, a journalist from the Old City of Jerusalem who lives near the gates of Al-Aqsa Mosque, told Arab News that he did not expect Israeli security services to allow Ben-Gvir’s followers to slaughter sacrifices inside Al-Aqsa. The move would lead to an unprecedented escalation and, possibly, a religious war, which would cause diplomatic embarrassment and further deteriorate Israel’s relationship with Jordan and other Arab countries.

Suhail Diab, mayor of Tamra in Galilee, told Arab News: “This government seeks to create problems instead of solving them. It seeks to complicate the situation to serve its interests and strengthen Israel’s right wing.”

Palestinians are also concerned about the formation of a national guard under the supervision of the far-right national security minister as, rather than an ordinary police force, it would constitute a military force to counter Palestinian demonstrations in Israel.  

Diab told Arab News that “the national guard formed by Ben-Gvir is a criminal gang to serve him and (Finance Minister Bezalel) Smotrich and (Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu.

“We reject their interference in Arab society (in Israel).”

The mayor added that Arab local authorities have decided not to receive Ben-Gvir and Smotrich in their towns in Galilee, the Triangle and Negev because of their attitudes toward Arabs and their incitements against them.

The Palestinian Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission said in its monthly report that Israeli occupation authorities and settlers carried out 436 attacks during March. 

These included direct assaults on citizens, vandalism, land leveling, tree uprooting and property seizures.