‘Catastrophic’: Palestinians recount fatal Israeli raid on Nablus
At least 150 Israeli soldiers in dozens of armoured vehicles swooped on Nablus on Wednesday in what turned out to be one of the deadliest military raids in the occupied West Bank since the mass Palestinian uprising or Intifada of 2000-05.
Within four hours, the Israeli army killed 11 Palestinians and injured more than 80 people with live ammunition – some of them critically. The raid comes barely a month after 10 Palestinians were killed in a similar raid in the Jenin refugee camp about 41km (25 miles) away.
Jenin and Nablus, which have emerged as the centres of limited armed Palestinian resistance, have become the scenes of increased deadly Israeli attacks.
Among the victims of Wednesday’s raids were three elderly men – aged 72, 66 and 61 – and a 16-year-old boy, while hundreds of others suffered tear gas inhalation.
“They were shooting left and right, at anyone – those who had and didn’t have weapons. I was standing 2 metres away from a guy, watching the events, and he was shot and injured right next to me,” Khaled Jamal, a 25-year-old resident, told Al Jazeera.
“It was catastrophic. Everyone inside and outside the hospital was crying at the scene before our eyes – men, women, children. Even the people who were at the hospitals for checkups were crying,” he continued.
Israeli undercover forces entered the Old City of Nablus on foot at dawn on Wednesday dressed as religious Muslim men and veiled women and hid inside a mosque in the al-Halabeh quarter next to a house where two Palestinian fighters were taking shelter.
The Israeli soldiers remained hidden inside the mosque until the morning, during which dozens of other soldiers took positions in and around the house and the neighbourhood, including snipers on rooftops, according to local residents.
The two fighters, Hossam Isleem, 24, and Mohammad Abdulghani (also known as Mohammad Jneidi), 23, who belonged to the Lions’ Den armed group in Nablus, refused to surrender. A few minutes later, Israeli forces attacked the house with rocket-propelled grenades and armed drones, killing the men, according to residents.
The Israeli army claims that Isleem, along with two other fighters in Israeli detention, Osama Taweel and Kamal Joury, was behind a shooting that killed an Israeli soldier near the illegal settlement of Shavei Shomron in October.
‘Unimaginable’
Akram Saeed Antar, a resident of the al-Halabeh area where the targeted house was located, said Israeli soldiers were firing indiscriminately.
“It was at least three hours of destruction, explosions, and live ammunition that targeted all the residents in the area,” Antar said. “They killed elderly people, children, on the streets.”
“The resistance fighters had basic rifles, they cannot resist shells, missiles, and drones,” continued Antar.
Amid the operation around the house, Israeli forces attacked large crowds of Palestinians in several busy locations across Nablus, with live ammunition and tear gas that contained pepper spray, including from drones, as widespread confrontations broke out with residents.
“They fired tear gas in an unimaginable way at women, men, elderly people, in every busy area in Nablus city where there were a lot of people. I went down with a group of youth to direct the people who have children, the families, into the main mall complex in the city centre – it was the safest place,” said Jamal, who also suffered tear gas inhalation.
