Israeli forces were hunting the assailant behind an attack that killed a soldier at an east Jerusalem checkpoint, authorities said yesterday, hours after two Palestinian teenagers were shot dead in an Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank.
The Israeli army said a soldier had been “killed as a result of being critically injured by a shooting attack” that police said had taken place at a checkpoint in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem near the Palestinian refugee camp of Shuafat.
The soldier was identified by the army as Noa Lazar, 18. She had served in the military police.
Photo: Reuters
Another Israeli, a 30-year-old man, was taken to Hadassah hospital in serious condition after being shot in the head, the medical center said.
Two border police officers were lightly wounded by shrapnel, police said.
Police cordoned off the area near the checkpoint and dozens of officers had been deployed at the entrance and exit of east Jerusalem.
Three Palestinians in their 20s from east Jerusalem were arrested on suspicion of “involvement in the attack,” a police statement said.
Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said yesterday that his heart was “broken” by Lazar’s death, adding that “we won’t rest until bringing the despicable murderers to justice.”
Earlier on Saturday, two Palestinian teenagers were shot dead in an operation by Israeli forces in Jenin, the flashpoint northern city in the occupied West Bank. The Palestinian health ministry announced the killing of “two citizens by occupation [Israeli] bullets in Jenin,” as Israeli troops carried out an arrest there. Eleven others were also wounded.
Those killed were named by the Palestinian health ministry as Ahmad Daraghmeh, 16, and Mahmoud as-Sous, 18. The Islamic Jihad militant group praised the teenagers as “martyrs.”
Israel’s military said troops entered Jenin on Saturday to detain a 25-year-old Palestinian it said was a member of Islamic Jihad and suspected of shooting at troops in the area.
“During the activity, dozens of Palestinians hurled explosive devices and Molotov cocktails at IDF [Israel Defense Forces] soldiers and shots were fired at them,” an army statement said, adding that soldiers fired at “the armed suspects.”
Saturday’s incident is the latest in a series of frequent and often deadly raids by Israel’s army targeting Palestinian militants, which have left dozens of Palestinian fighters and civilians dead.
The official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported Israeli forces fired directly at journalists during the Jenin raid. Two reporters were wounded on Wednesday last week while covering a military operation witnessed by an Agence France-Presse journalist near the West Bank city of Nablus, in which one Palestinian was killed.
In May, Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was shot dead while covering an Israeli raid in Jenin.
Saturday’s violence in Jenin comes a day after two other Palestinian teenagers were shot dead by Israeli forces, according to the health ministry — Adel Dawoud, 14, killed in the northern West Bank, and Mahdi Ladadweh, 17, killed near the city of Ramallah.
“I am alarmed by the deteriorating security situation, including the rise in armed clashes between Palestinians and Israeli security forces in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem,” UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Tor Wennesland said.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since the 1967 Six-Day War and around 475,000 Israelis now live in settlements across the territory, which are considered illegal by most of the international community.
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