JENIN: Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank killed five Palestinians on Monday, in a raid that saw seven Israeli security personnel wounded and rare helicopter fire.

The sound of gunfire was heard across Jenin as wounded Palestinians continued to arrive by ambulance to the northern West Bank city’s Ibn Sina hospital into the early afternoon, an AFP journalist said.

Crowds gathered outside Jenin government hospital, as the funerals of those killed in eleven hours of fighting began.

The Palestinian health ministry said five people had been killed and at least 91 others were wounded in the violence.

It identified four of those killed as Ahmed Saqer, 15; Khaled Assassa, 21; Qais Jabareen, 21; Ahmad Daraghmeh, 19; and Qassam Abu Saria, 29.

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad said Abu Saria was its fighter.

Among the injured was Palestinian journalist Hazem Nasser, who was hospitalised with a gunshot wound, according to the Palestinian journalists’ syndicate.

Jenin’s deputy governor, Kamal Abu al-Rub, said the Israeli forces had laun­ched the raid at around 4:00am (0100 GMT).

“The army stormed the (Jenin refugee) camp and the city after the dawn prayer in large numbers, and there was intense gunfire,” he said.

An AFP journalist at the scene said Israeli forces withdrew from Jenin at around 15:10 (1210 GMT).

Vehicle hit by explosive

The Israeli army said its armoured vehicle had been hit by a “very unusual and dramatic” explosive device at around 7:10am (0410 GMT), during “routine activity” to arrest two “wanted suspects” - one affiliated with Hamas and the other with the Islamic Jihad.

“We had five Israeli border police guys wounded, and two soldiers also lightly wounded,” army spokesman Richard Hecht said.

“From that point, we had to extract our injured. It will take a few hours, it’s going to be pretty harsh, there is a lot of fire,” he added in the early afternoon.

The army said that an Apache helicopter had fired missiles in support of the soldiers, a rare move in the West Bank.

A Palestinian intelligence official said it was the first time since 2002 -- during the second Palestinian uprising -- that the Israeli army has fired missiles from an aircraft during a raid in Jenin.

The United Nations rights chief, Volker Turk, said he was “extremely worried by the deteriorating situation”.

“Unlawful killings of Palestinians by the Israeli security forces have increased, including apparent extrajudicial executions,” he added.

Palestinian health minister Mai al-Kaila appealed in a statement for urgent dispatch of blood and medical supplies to Jenin.

Hussein al-Sheikh, the Palestinian Authority’s civil affairs minister, said a “fierce and open war is being waged against the Palestinian people... by the occupation (Israeli) forces”.

He called for the Palestinian leadership to take “unprecedented decisions” without elaborating.

Speaking as the raid unfolded, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said: “We will use all the tools at our disposal and strike terrorists wherever they may be.”

Israel has occupied the West Bank since the 1967 Six-Day War and its forces regularly launch incursions into Palestinian cities, which are nominally under the control of President Mahmud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority.

Published in Dawn, June 20th, 2023