Ramallah, occupied West Bank – Israeli forces have shot dead at least five Palestinian men during a raid on Jericho in the eastern occupied West Bank.
The large-scale raid took place in the early hours of Monday in the Aqabet Jabr refugee camp – which has been under an Israeli siege, as described by Palestinians, for more than a week – and continued until after dawn.
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Confirming the death of five people, the governor of Jericho said three others were injured.
The Israeli military initially said in a statement that it had killed seven men in total, including two responsible for an attempted shooting attack in Jericho on January 28, and five others who had engaged the army in fighting during the raid.
The army said it withheld the bodies of five of the men killed, including those it claimed were “members of the Hamas cell in Jericho, including the perpetrators of the Almog [checkpoint] operation”.
It was unclear whether all of the men were firing back at the Israeli army when they were shot.
The shooting on January 28 did not lead to any casualties. It took place just two days after a large-scale Israeli raid on the Jenin refugee camp in which 10 Palestinians were killed.
Hamas, the Palestinian group governing the besieged Gaza Strip, did not claim any of the seven men killed as its members.
During the raid on Jericho, Israeli forces arrested Hamas leader Shaker Amara, who was recently released from prison.
Israeli forces also arrested a 48-year-old woman, Rajaa Karsou, during a raid on the Balata refugee camp in the northern occupied city of Nablus in the West Bank on Monday morning.