Israeli soldiers operate in the village of Sarra near the Palestinian West Bank city of Nablus, Sunday, March 12, 2023. Israeli forces shot dead three Palestinian gunmen who opened fire on troops in the occupied West Bank. . It is the latest bloodshed in a year-long wave of violence in the region.
Majdi Mohammed/AP
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Majdi Mohammed/AP
Israeli soldiers operate in the village of Sarra near the Palestinian West Bank city of Nablus, Sunday, March 12, 2023. Israeli forces shot dead three Palestinian gunmen who opened fire on troops in the occupied West Bank. . It is the latest bloodshed in a year-long wave of violence in the region.
Majdi Mohammed/AP
JERUSALEM — Israeli forces shot dead three Palestinian gunmen on Sunday who opened fire on troops in the occupied West Bank, the military said, the latest bloodshed in a wave of violence lasting a year. year in the region.
The military said one gunman turned himself in and was arrested. The Palestinian Health Ministry confirmed three people were killed near the city of Nablus. It did not immediately reveal their identities.
Sunday’s deaths bring the number of Palestinians killed to 80 since the start of the year, as Israel ramps up arrests in the West Bank. A series of Palestinian attacks killed 14 people in 2023.
The new violence follows an Israeli military raid last week on the West Bank village of Jaba, where three Palestinian militants were killed. Hours later, a Palestinian gunman opened fire on a busy Tel Aviv street at the start of an Israeli weekend, wounding three people before being shot dead.
The current round of violence is one of the worst between Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank in years. It began last spring after a series of Palestinian attacks against Israelis, which resulted in near-nightly Israeli attacks in the West Bank.
Nearly 150 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank and East Jerusalem by 2022, making it the bloodiest year in these regions since 2004, according to leading Israeli human rights group B’Tselem. Palestinian attacks against the Israelis during that same period killed 30 people.
The military said most of the Palestinians killed were militants. But young men who threw stones against the incursions and others who did not participate in the confrontations were also killed.
Israel said the attacks were necessary to dismantle militant networks and prevent future attacks. But the attacks seem to be intensifying rather than slowing down.
Palestinians see the attacks as Israel’s tightening of the 55-year, unrestricted occupation of the lands they seek for their future state.
Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war. Palestinians seek those territories for their future independent state.
