The Israeli occupation forces stormed the cities of Hebron and Nablus in the occupied West Bank – last night and at dawn on Tuesday – and launched a campaign of widespread raids and arrests. Confrontations also occurred as a result of the occupation soldiers’ attacks on the Palestinians, leaving some injured.
The occupation forces withdrew this morning from the Al-Arroub camp, north of Hebron, in the south of the West Bank, after a massive arrest campaign. Local sources reported that the arrests included 13 young men, including freed prisoners.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health announced – in a brief statement yesterday evening – that Hebron Governmental Hospital had received a critical injury to the head from occupation bullets from the Bab al-Zawiya area.
Eyewitnesses told Anadolu Agency that confrontations broke out between Palestinians and the occupation army, which stormed central Hebron yesterday evening to secure settlers’ incursions into an archaeological site.
Witnesses indicated that the occupation army forced the owners of dozens of commercial stores – on Beersheba and Wadi al-Tuffah Streets – to close them, and obstructed the access of public vehicles to their own complex near the site.
The occupation forces attacked Palestinians in the vicinity of the Ibrahimi Mosque in the city of Hebron, in the south of the West Bank.
The occupation soldiers threw stun grenades and tear gas at a number of residents of the area while they were trying to reach their homes. The occupation forces impose a security cordon around the Haram to prevent settlers from storming it.
The occupation army closed the Ibrahimi Mosque in the city on the occasion of the so-called Jewish Throne Day.
Earlier yesterday, the director of the Hebron Endowments Department said that the Israeli occupation authorities closed the Ibrahimi Mosque on Monday and Tuesday, under the pretext of celebrating Throne Day.
It is customary for settlers on Jewish holidays, accompanied by military reinforcements, to storm Beersheba Street in central Hebron, a vital commercial street, under the pretext of visiting an archaeological site called Hebron, while the Palestinians deny any Jewish connection to it.
Confrontations in Nablus
Meanwhile, at dawn today, the occupation forces, accompanied by extremist settlement groups, withdrew from the area of Joseph’s Tomb, east of the city of Nablus in the northern West Bank, after storming the area and performing Talmudic rituals.
Local sources said that extremist settlement groups also stormed the eastern neighborhood of Nablus to perform Talmudic rituals.
As a result, confrontations took place between Palestinian youths and the occupation forces in Balata al-Balad, east of Nablus, while the occupation army sent military reinforcements from the direction of the Awarta checkpoint.
For its part, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society announced – in a statement – that its crews transported to the hospital a Palestinian boy (15 years old) who was injured in the thigh by live bullets, during confrontations with the occupation army in the town of Madama in the city of Nablus.
According to the official Palestinian News Agency (Wafa), the occupation forces stormed the village amid heavy gunfire, which led to the outbreak of confrontations.
Wafa reported that a child suffered bruises yesterday evening after occupation soldiers assaulted him in Kafr Qalil (south of Nablus). She added that the occupation forces stormed the village, deployed in its streets, and beat the boy, Mahmoud Mansour (14 years old), after which he was taken to the hospital.
Also in the northern West Bank, the agency reported that the occupation army arrested a child and a young man from the village of Al-Zawiya, west of Salfit.
“Wafa” indicated that the occupation forces stormed the town amidst firing live bullets and sound bombs, and detained a number of children and young men and abused them, before arresting the child Zain Rifaat Shuqair and the young man Abdul-Jabbar Ali Abdul-Jabbar.
In a parallel development, the occupation forces withdrew at dawn today from Qalandia and Kafr Aqab camps, north of occupied Jerusalem.
In parallel with the genocidal war – which Israel has been committing with American support since October 7, 2023 – the occupation army expanded its operations in the West Bank, and settlers also escalated their attacks on Palestinians and their property, resulting in the martyrdom of 759 Palestinians, the injury of about 6,250 others, and the arrest of 11,000. And 300 Palestinians, according to official Palestinian data.
The ongoing Israeli genocidal war on Gaza has resulted in more than 142,000 Palestinian martyrs and wounded, most of them children and women, and more than 10,000 missing persons, amid massive destruction and famine that left dozens of children and the elderly martyred, in one of the worst humanitarian disasters in the world.