Prisoners’ rights group says troops inflicted ‘severe beatings’; An Israeli soldier was killed in the Jenin explosion.
The Israeli army has arrested 28 Palestinians in a series of raids in the occupied West Bank, according to a Palestinian rights group.
The night raids, part of Israel’s escalating assault on the occupied territories, targeted the governorates of Jenin, Hebron, Bethlehem, Ramallah and el-Bireh, Nablus and Jerusalem, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society said Thursday.
Israeli forces inflicted “severe beatings” and threatened the families of detainees, said the group, which keeps a daily tally of arrests.
Violence in the West Bank, already on the rise before the outbreak of Israel’s current war on Gaza in October, has since intensified with frequent army raids on Palestinian groups, rampages by Jewish settlers in Palestinian villages and deadly attacks on Palestinians in the streets.
Reporting from Ramallah, Tel Aviv Tribune’s Nour Odeh said the Israeli military had “significantly” increased its operations, carrying out around 38 raids per day, with a slight increase in arrests. Home demolitions have increased by 25 percent since last year, displacing more than 1,000 Palestinians.
In Jenin, where nine Palestinians were arrested, armed clashes broke out in the city and its refugee camp in the early hours of Thursday.
Palestinian media reported that Israeli forces raided a pharmacy near the Jenin government hospital on the outskirts of the Jenin refugee camp, transferring the detainees to an unknown destination.
One resident said Israeli bulldozers destroyed infrastructure inside the camp and in the town of Jenin.
During the raid, Palestinian fighters attacked Israeli armored vehicles with explosive devices, killing one soldier and injuring 16 others.
“There were two explosions. The first one injured people. The second one is where the death happened,” Odeh said.
“According to preliminary Israeli investigations, the devices were buried or located one and a half meters deep in the ground, deeper than Israeli military vehicles usually dig to be able to find these improvised devices,” she said. declared.
The Israeli army confirmed the death. The soldier “fell during an operational activity in the Jenin region,” the statement said.
Meanwhile, Wafa news agency reported that four Palestinians were arrested in an overnight operation in Hebron.
Israeli forces stormed the town of Yatta, south of Hebron city, arresting three people, including a student. Another man was arrested in the town of Dura, southwest of Hebron.
The Israeli army also arrested a man after shooting him in the foot in the Qalandiya refugee camp, while another man was detained in the village of Deir Ghassana, northwest of Ramallah.
Since October 7, Israel has made a total of 9,430 arrests in the West Bank in almost daily raids.
United Nations human rights chief Volker Turk warned this month that the situation in the West Bank was “deteriorating dramatically,” saying earlier that people there were “subjected day after day to unprecedented bloodshed.”
