JENIN: Three Palestinians were killed in an Israeli military operation near Jenin in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, Israeli security forces said.
A joint statement from the army, police and Shin Bet security agency said the three fighters died in an exchange of fire in Qabatiya village, where undercover border police attempted to arrest a wanted man.
The Israeli forces came under fire from a building where the suspect, Raed Hanaysha, was hiding, the statement said, before killing him and “two armed terrorists”.
The Israeli army said it seized weapons from the scene, “destroyed two bomb-making labs”, and that its forces were still active in the area.
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“There are three bodies of martyrs that are now with the Israeli side, after they killed them,” local governor Kamal Abu al-Rub said, citing the office in charge of liaising between Israeli and Palestinian authorities in the West Bank.
The Palestinian health ministry said the District Coordination Office had also informed it of the deaths of “three young men shot by Israeli forces near Qabatiya”, which is in the Jenin governorate.
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The three men were between 24 and 32 years old, a ministry statement said, identifying Raed Hanaysha as one of the dead.
Israeli security forces said Hanaysha had been involved “in shooting and bombing attacks” recently against the army.
Violence in the West Bank, particularly in the north, has soared since the war in Gaza broke out on October 7 last year.
Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 771 Palestinians in the West Bank since the start of the Gaza war, according to the Ramallah-based health ministry.
Palestinian attacks on Israelis have also killed at least 24 people in the same period in the West Bank, according to official Israeli figures.
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