Israeli forces killed six terrorists on Tuesday during a raid in the West Bank city of Jenin, including Abdul Fattah Hussein Khrousheh – the perpetrator of the deadly attack on Jews near Nablus a week earlier. The raid on Tuesday involved heavy clashesץ
The 49-year-old Khrousheh, who was imprisoned in Israel for 40 months before being released in December, shot the brothers Hallel and Yagel Yaniv at point blank when they were passing with their car in the Palestinian village of Hawara near Nablus. The two, from the nearby settlement of Har Brachah, died while being evacuated to a hospital. Following the Feb. 26 attack on the two Israeli brothers in the town of Hawara, a mob of Israeli settlers set buildings and cars on fire.
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During the operation in Jenin on Tuesday, the Jenin brigade, a loosely organized armed group based in the refugee camp, said its activists were shooting and throwing explosive devices at Israeli soldiers who had surrounded a house in the refugee camp. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tweeted praise for the troops, saying that they "operated in a pinpointed manner in the heart of a the killers' nest." He added, "Whoever harms us puts his own life in peril." The Israel Police Counter Terror Unit led the raid, with two of its officers suffering moderate wounds and evacuated to a Haifa hospital.
The army also said it was operating in Nablus and according to some reports, al-Harusha's children were arrested in that operation.
Tuesday's raid was the latest in a string of deadly arrest operations by the Israeli military in the northern West Bank. Last month, a rare daytime military raid in the Old City of Nablus targeting a recently formed militant group known as the Lion's Den sparked an hours-long gunfight and left 10 Palestinians dead, most of them terrorists.
The raid comes just as Israelis celebrate the festival of Purim. Celebrations came at a time of heightened tensions between Israelis and Palestinians across the West Bank. In fresh violence, settlers lightly wounded a Palestinian man in a flashpoint town Monday that was torched in a settler rampage last week, medics said.
There were conflicting accounts about what sparked Monday's violence. Initially, Palestinian officials said, a group of settlers came to the main Hawara thoroughfare in a van, blasting music in what they described as a "provocation." Ghassan Daghlas, a Palestinian official who monitors Israeli settlements in the northern West Bank, said several Israeli settlers attacked a supermarket. Paramedics said that one man was treated for a head injury.
Security camera footage from near the shop appeared to show Israeli settlers throwing rocks at it, and Palestinians hurling stones back. Outside, Israeli men dressed in black are seen hurling stones and pounding the windows of a car with occupants inside.
Local Palestinian residents protested nearby, shouting "God is great," in Arabic. Israeli media said Palestinians also threw rocks at Israeli cars passing through Hawara, damaging four vehicles.
The IDF said there were "several violent confrontations" on Monday night, and that soldiers dispersed the crowds in Hawara, where the deadly attack on Jews last week led Jewish settlers to riot in the village and burn dozens of cars, as well as cause extensive damage to homes. Amateur video footage from Monday appeared to show Israeli settlers dancing with soldiers on the main Hawara road, alongside a van with the words "Happy Purim" emblazoned on the side. The army said the soldiers' conduct was "not aligned with the behavior expected" and that the incident was under review.
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