Israel on Thursday demolished the home of a Palestinian accused of killing a soldier in October 2022 in the northern occupied West Bank, which has been the scene of a fresh outbreak of violence in recent days.
Since the beginning of the week, twenty people have been killed in Israeli military incursions or attacks by Palestinian raiders or Israeli settlers in the West Bank, bringing the death toll in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to over 200 a year.
When Israeli soldiers marched into Nablus, a large Palestinian city in the northern West Bank, overnight, they emerged at dawn after destroying Kamal Jouri’s apartment building, witnesses told AFP.
Israel has accused Kamal Jouri of carrying out an attack in October 2022 that killed soldier Ido Baroukh. He is being held by Israel, as is Osama Tawil, who is also accused of involvement in the attack and whose home was destroyed on June 15, the Israeli army said in a press release.
The army confirmed the destruction in the Palestinian Authority Zone and said that during the operation “rioters opened fire on the soldiers, damaging a military vehicle”.
The Israeli policy of leveling the homes of Palestinians responsible for deadly anti-Israel attacks or making their homes uninhabitable has been condemned by human rights organizations, for which it amounts to collective punishment.
The Israeli government, on the other hand, claims that it has a deterrent effect.
drone attack
The northern West Bank is a bastion of Palestinian armed groups, frequented by Israeli military operations, as well as anti-Israeli attacks or attacks by Jewish settlers on Palestinian towns. In recent days, the northern West Bank has again been the epicenter of deadly violence.
On Monday, an Israeli military attack in the Palestinian refugee camp in Jenin killed seven people, including a fighter from the armed group Islamic Jihad and two 15-year-olds. The army, which it said fired rockets from a helicopter to allow its troops to withdraw, met with strong local resistance.
Four Israelis were killed in a Palestinian attack near the Eli settlement on Tuesday. The two attackers were shot.
And on Wednesday, partially armed Israelis marched through the Palestinian city of Turmusayya between Ramallah and Nablus, burning houses and vehicles, witnesses and the Israeli army said.
One Palestinian was killed during the attack or in the confusion in clashes with Israeli police that followed. On the spot, journalists saw burned houses and injured people who were evacuated by ambulance.
Finally, three Palestinians from the Jenin refugee camp, who were portrayed by the army as members of a “terrorist cell,” were killed in a drone strike on Wednesday evening.
According to a Palestinian intelligence source, the last Israeli drone strike in the West Bank was in August 2006.
At least 174 Palestinians, 25 Israelis, one Ukrainian and one Italian have been killed in violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since the beginning of the year, according to an AFP tally compiled from official Israeli and Palestinian sources.
These statistics include combatants and civilians, including minors, on the Palestinian side and mostly civilians, including minors, and three members of the Arab minority on the Israeli side.
Apart from occupied and annexed East Jerusalem, nearly three million Palestinians live in the West Bank, Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967. About 490,000 Israelis also live there in settlements that the United Nations has classified as illegal under international law.