Israeli forces raid Jenin Camp. Photo: Jaafar Ashtiyeh/AFP.
The Israeli army killed six Palestinians and injured 11 more during a raid on the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank on March 7, Palestinian state news agency WAFA reported.
According to eyewitnesses, Israeli soldiers besieged a house with Palestinian resistance fighters holed up inside while an Israeli Apache helicopter fired missiles at the home.
According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, the fatalities include Muhammad Wael Ghazawi, 26, Majd Muhammed Azmi Husseiniyeh, 26, Tariq Ziad Mustafa Natour, 27, Ziad Amin Zaraini, 29, Mutasim Nasser Sabbagh, 22, and Abdel Fattah Hussein Kharousha, 49.
Palestinian activist Jamal Huwail told Al-Mayadeen that two Israeli drones were shot down above Jenin and that the Israeli military fired several missiles at the besieged house.
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The Israeli army claimed that the perpetrator of the attack in Huwara that killed two Israeli settlers on February 26 was among the dead.
Following the resistance o in Huwara, Israeli settlers launched a several-hour pogrom against Huwara, killing one Palestinian, injuring at least 390, and torching dozens of Palestinian homes and vehicles under the supervision of Israeli troops.
The Hebrew daily Yedioth Ahronoth said about 400 settlers took part in the attack and that six of the houses burned by settlers were set on fire while residents were inside.
In a similar attack in July 2015, an 18-month-old Palestinian boy burned to death after settlers set fire to his family’s house in Duma village, south of Nablus city, in the occupied West Bank.
Israeli politicians encouraged further settler violence against the Palestinian residents of Huwara, including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who said on March 1 that “Huwara should be wiped out.”
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Former Israeli spy Jonathon Pollard, who was imprisoned for 20 years for spying on the United States, expressed a similar sentiment, claiming on March 6 that “Our enemies only understand decisive retaliation… the destruction of Hawara will mark the beginning of our reconquest of our land.”
Israel has killed at least 65 Palestinians since the beginning of 2023. The violence this year has been described as some of the “bloodiest” in recent Palestinian memory.
Comments from Smotrich, Pollard, and others about destroying Palestinian villages and conquering Palestinian land have raised fears that many in Israel’s new government are hoping for a mass expulsion of Palestinians.
In response to Finance Minister Smoltrich’s threats against Palestinians in Huwara, former Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz claimed that “Smotrich wants to cause another Palestinian Nakba—for him, escalation is a desirable thing.”
In 1947-48, pre-state Zionist militias forcibly expelled and carried out the ethnic cleansing of some 750,000 Palestinians (known as the “Nakba”) that paved the way for the creation of the state of Israel with a Jewish demographic majority.
