The war in the Middle East is not only taking place in Gaza.
A local commander of the armed wing of Islamic Jihad was killed Wednesday afternoon by an Israeli strike on a car in Jenin, in the north of the occupied West Bank, in which two other Palestinians accused by Israel of preparing attacks were also killed. .
According to an Israeli army statement, an “aircraft struck two prominent Islamic Jihad executors aboard a vehicle.”
One of them, Ahmed Barakat, accused of a deadly attack against an Israeli living in a settlement near Jenin in May 2023, “was eliminated”, and two other men who were planning “terrorist attacks” against Israel “were were also hit,” added the army.
The Al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of Islamic Jihad, confirmed Barakat's death in a brief statement, presenting him as the leader of military operations of the Jenin brigade.
According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, one person was also injured in the attack.
Funerals held in the evening
On site, AFP journalists noted that a crowd had gathered around the charred remains of a white vehicle.
Another car caught fire but was virtually intact.
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“Suddenly there was an explosion on the side of my car.
Due to the force of the explosion, my car caught fire,” said Amir Alsabah, 30, driver of the second car.
Next to him, rescuers sprayed blood on the road with a hose, while the sound of a drone rang out.
In the evening, several hundred people, including young people armed with automatic rifles and firing bursts into the air, participated in the funeral of the three men in the city's refugee camp, AFP journalists noted.
Bastion of the fight against Israel
Jenin, home to one of the most populous and poor refugee camps in the Palestinian territories, is a stronghold of groups engaged in armed struggle against Israel.
Started on October 7, the war between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas in the Gaza Strip was accompanied by an intensification of violence in the West Bank, territory occupied by Israel since 1967. According to the Palestinian Authority, at least 430 Palestinians there have been killed by fire from Israeli soldiers or settlers since then, and thousands more have been arrested.
At least seventeen Israeli soldiers or civilians have died in attacks, according to Israeli authorities.