JERUSALEM: Three Israeli police officers were killed on Sunday when their vehicle came under fire near the city of Hebron in the occupied West Bank, Israeli officials said, adding to days of violence in the Palestinian territory.

Following the attack in the area of the Idna Tarqumiyah Junction, security forces surrounded a house in Hebron and killed a Palestinian suspected of carrying out the shooting, the military said.

Hundreds of Israeli troops have been carrying out raids across the West Bank since last Wednesday in one of their largest actions in the area in months.

The Palestinian Red Crescent reported on Sunday that two Palestinian brothers had been shot by Israeli forces in the town of Kafr Dan, outside Jenin in the northern West Bank.

The deployment of army and police units across the West Bank has underscored the heavy pressure facing Israeli security forces now fighting on multiple fronts, with little sign of a breakthrough in talks to secure a halt to the fighting in Gaza. “We are fighting on all fronts against a cruel enemy who wants to murder us all,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. As he spoke, Israeli troops were still operating in Jenin.

The operation, now in its fifth day, has caused heavy damage to infrastructure in the city and the adjacent refugee camp, a densely populated township, with multiple damaged houses and buildings and a mass of streets torn up by armoured bulldozers hunting for roadside bombs. At least 24 Palestinians, most claimed by Hamas or Islamic Jihad as their members, have been killed since the start of the Israeli operation. Israeli forces have made 110 arrests, according to the Palestinian prisoners association.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a hardline member of Israel’s security cabinet, called for more action against Palestinians in the West Bank. “We need to do now what we didn’t do that awful night and launch a pre-emptive strike and strike terrorism hard,” he said, referring to Hamas’s Oct 7 raid on Israel.

The latest deaths bring the number of Israelis killed in Palestinian attacks outside Gaza since Oct 7 to at least 22, with around 20 Israelis and foreigners killed by missile attacks from southern Lebanon.

At the same time, Israeli forces have killed almost 680 Palestinians, including armed fighters, stone-throwing youths and uninvolved civilians.

Published in Dawn, September 2nd, 2024