Three Palestinians were killed in the town of Qabatiya, south of Jenin in the West Bank, in clashes with Israeli occupation forces, which resulted in the besieging of about a thousand students in two schools in the area.
Tel Aviv Tribune’s correspondent said that Israeli special forces infiltrated the town of Qabatiya and surrounded a house there, after which armed clashes broke out between resistance fighters and the occupation forces.
The official Palestinian news agency (Wafa) confirmed that 3 young men were killed and 4 others were injured by the occupation forces’ bullets during the clashes.
Tel Aviv Tribune’s correspondent monitored the occupation forces firing tear gas near ambulance crews and press teams. The Palestinian Red Crescent said that the occupation forces prevented ambulance crews from reaching one of the besieged houses, after receiving reports of injuries in the house.
An Israeli soldier shot a wounded Palestinian man on top of a house in the town of Qabatiya. A video clip showed the soldier shooting the wounded man, before the soldiers seized all the bodies of the martyrs on the roof of the besieged house.
On the other hand, Qabatiya Education Director Ahmed Jarara’a announced the start of the evacuation of about a thousand students after they were besieged inside two schools in the town. He added, “About a thousand students in Izzat Abu al-Rab Secondary School and Qabatiya Higher Elementary School were besieged amid an ongoing Israeli military operation in the town.”
Jarara’a continued in statements to Anadolu Agency that about 200 teachers and administrators were also besieged in the two schools and in the Qabatiya Education Directorate adjacent to the site, and he spoke about “a state of terror experienced by the students due to the shooting and hearing the sounds of explosions at the site.”
He pointed out that “after several hours, coordination was made with the relevant authorities and the students began to be evacuated via Palestinian buses, with the army and its vehicles present around the two schools.”
This is the second raid on the same town within two days. The Israeli army raided it yesterday, Wednesday, surrounded a house and arrested a citizen, before withdrawing.
Raids in Hebron
In the same context, a military force raided the town of Beit Awa, west of the city of Dura, south of Hebron, accompanied by heavy demolition vehicles and a bulldozer, and began demolishing two houses under construction and a commercial facility in the area classified as “B” and administratively subject to the Palestinian Authority.
The director of Beit Awa municipality told Tel Aviv Tribune that the municipality had been following up on the legal file of the two houses in the Israeli courts for two months, but had not issued any decisions regarding them, adding that the demolition came without prior warning.
The Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) described the occupation’s ongoing attacks in the West Bank and assassinations as “terrorist aggression”, and said that what happened in Qabatiya will not undermine the steadfastness of the Palestinian people.
The movement confirmed in a statement that “the path of resistance in the West Bank continues relentlessly,” and renewed its call to escalate the confrontation in the West Bank and resist the occupation, as part of the Battle of the Flood of Al-Aqsa.
The West Bank is witnessing a wave of tension and field confrontations between the Palestinians and the Israeli army, including raids and arrests of Palestinians, coinciding with the aggression on the Gaza Strip, which left tens of thousands of civilian martyrs and wounded, most of them children and women.