An Israeli drone killed three militant gunmen in the West Bank yesterday, in a rare strike that came hours after settlers attacked Palestinian towns, torching cars and buildings in retaliation for an attack by Hamas gunmen a day earlier.
The strike near the flashpoint city of Jenin came amid a surge in violence over recent days in the occupied West Bank, where for over a year the military has been conducting regular sweeps leading to repeated clashes with Palestinian fighters.
The Israeli military (IDF) said a squad of militants was identified in a vehicle after they carried out a shooting attack near the town of Jalamah.
A statement by the Islamic Jihad group said two of the men were their fighters while the third was from the Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades armed wing of the Fatah movement.
Although surveillance drones are commonplace, the strike by an Elbit Hermes drone, which followed a rare use of helicopter gunships in the operation in Jenin, was the first by the Israeli military in the West Bank since 2006, the IDF said.
Hours earlier, Israeli settlers rampaged through Palestinian towns in the West Bank in retaliation for the killing of four Israelis by Hamas gunmen who opened fire on a restaurant near the settlement of Eli.
One Palestinian was shot dead during the attack while at least one other was critically injured, Palestinian health officials said.
Residents of a number of other Palestinian towns reported settler attacks after the killings and senior ministers in Netanyahu’s government called for a full-scale military operation across the West Bank.
Yaqoub Oweis, chairman of the village council of Al Lubban Al Sharqeya near Ramallah, said Israeli soldiers and police stood by as a large group of settlers burned a petrol station, orchards, a cement factory and dozens of cars. “The attack was unprecedented and abnormal,” he said. “There was heavy gunfire but we couldn’t distinguish whether it came from settlers or the soldiers because of the darkness.”
&uuid=(email))