Israelis kill 3 Palestinians and wound 15 others

Israeli occupation forces killed three Palestinians and injured 15 others during a pre-dawn raid on Monday in Qalandiya refugee camp north of occupied Jerusalem. Local medical sources said that Roubine Fares, aged 35, and Younis Jahjouh, 22, were killed immediately, while Jehad Aslan, 20, was pronounced dead on arrival at a Palestinian hospital in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah. Six of the men wounded sustained serious injuries during the incident.

Eyewitnesses said that Israeli occupation soldiers and undercover forces killed the two men “intentionally” at the scene of the attack. They were shot with live ammunition “at very close range”, the witnesses claimed.

Military sources told Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper that the victims were “terror suspects”. They denied any knowledge of the use of live ammunition, claiming that only “riot control” bullets were used against “rioters” who confronted security forces.

The Minister of Religious Endowments in the Gaza government, Ismail Radwan, condemned these latest killings of Palestinians by the Israelis. “This is part of the ongoing Israeli crackdown on the will of the Palestinian people,” he said. Radwan blamed “security cooperation” between the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah and the Israeli occupation for what he described as a “massacre”. He accused the PA of passing information to the Israelis which led them to enter a Palestinian neighbourhood to kill and detain civilians.

A spokesman for the Palestinian Authority president said that the killings send a strong message to those involved in peace talks. “Coupled with the announcements of more settlement construction, the killings will have negative results,” said Nabeel Abu-Rodaina.