BICOM

An elite IDF unit was involved in clashes in the West Bank city of Jenin during a special arrest operation, leaving a Hamas activist dead and several injured.

According to Maariv, the IDF force entered Jenin disguised as television repair workers with the aim of arresting a Hamas leader, named by the Palestinian Ma’an news agency as Abu al-Hayja. However, Maariv reports that during the operation, Palestinians opened fire and attacked the IDF unit with improvised grenades and Molotov cocktails. Although additional IDF armoured vehicles entered Jenin, the Israeli soldiers assessed their lives were in danger and opened fire, which resulted in the death of 23-year-old Nafe a-Sa’adi, identified by Israel Radio as a Hamas operative. Due to the clashes, the operation ended without apprehending the wanted al-Hayja.

The IDF said a-Sa’adi died of his wounds in an IDF ambulance transferring him to a Jenin hospital, while the IDF also evacuated additional injured individuals. No injuries to Israeli soldiers were reported. Commenting on the incident, an IDF source told the Jerusalem Post, “The response by security forces was appropriate in light of the fact that their lives were clearly in danger.”

This morning, in a similar incident in Qalqilya, also in the West Bank, IDF forces attempted to make an arrest and came under fire. Initial reports suggest that a Palestinian man was killed in the ensuing exchange.

During the past three months, a number of incidents have raised Israeli security concerns in the West Bank. Last month, three men suspected of building a Salafi terror network across the West Bank, were killed following a shoot-out near Hebron. In October, an Israeli man was bludgeoned to death in the Jordan Valley a week after a nine-year-old girl was shot by an assailant just outside her home in Psagot. In September, an IDF soldier was kidnapped and murdered near Beit Amin and another was shot dead in Hebron.