The Thursday raid – the latest since Israel intensified attacks on areas in the northern West Bank last year in an attempt to crack down on growing armed Palestinian resistance – was carried out by undercover Israeli forces “who broke into downtown Jenin,” the official Palestinian news agency Wafa quoted the health ministry as saying.
It added that 20 others were injured with live ammunition, including at least four who remain in critical condition.
The Palestinian health ministry identified three of the dead as Youssef Shreem, 29, Nidal Khazim, 28, and Omar Awadin, 16. The identity of the fourth person was not immediately known.
The Israeli military said in a statement that its “security forces are currently operating in the Jenin refugee camp.”
The latest deaths bring the number of Palestinians killed since the start of the year to 83 as the Israeli regime has stepped up arrest raids across the West bank.
Meanwhile, Hamas resistance movement has mourned the death of the four Palestinians killed in the latest Jenin raid.
“The cowardly assassination of two resistance leaders [in the raid] will not go unpunished,” the movement said in a statement, Press TV reported.
“The occupying regime is certain that the response to its actions is imminent, and that resistance fighters with continue their struggle until full liberation [of Palestinian lands],” Hamas added.
“Our steadfast people will not sit idly by and will continue to defend al-Quds and the sacred al-Aqsa Mosque compound. Resistance fighters well know the path and how to confront the Occupation,” the resistance movement noted.
Hamas spokesman Abdul-Latif Qanu also said in a statement that the Tel Aviv regime’s targeted killing of two resistance commanders in Jenin raid will not go unanswered.
He underlined that Palestinians and resistance groups are fully capable of delivering a stinging blow to Israel and making it pay a heavy price for its crimes.
“The Palestinian resistance in the West Bank will persist. No one will be able to either stop its expansion or prevent it from responding to the crimes of the occupying Israeli regime,” Qanu said.
Over the past months, Israel has ramped up attacks on Palestinian towns and cities throughout the occupied territories. As a result of these attacks, dozens of Palestinians have lost their lives and many others have been arrested.
Most of the raids have focused on Nablus and Jenin, where Israeli forces have been trying to stifle a growing Palestinian resistance in the occupied cities.
Local and international rights groups have condemned Israel’s excessive use of force and “shoot-to-kill policy” against Palestinians.
MNA/PR
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