The operation had started the day before. This Saturday, the Israeli army said it killed ten people and arrested eight others during a raid in the Nour Shams camp, near the town of Tulkarem, in the north of the occupied West Bank.
An AFP correspondent on site reported hearing explosions and gunfire on Saturday morning, and seeing a house explode and drones flying over the camp. On images from AFPTV, we can see military vehicles and soldiers roaming the alleys of the camp.
“Security forces eliminated ten terrorists during clashes,” the army said in a statement, adding that they had been carrying out this operation “for more than 40 hours.” The Israeli army says these incursions target Palestinian armed groups, but civilians are often among the victims.
The Palestinian Authority's Ministry of Health, for its part, reports "several people killed and injured inside the camp, but the army is preventing medical teams from helping the injured." A rescuer was injured by bullets, added the same source in a press release.
A two-day “siege”
According to residents contacted by AFP, there is no more electricity, food is starting to run out, and no one can enter or leave the camp. “The siege of the Nour Shams camp has continued for more than 42 hours,” Muayad Shaaban, head of the Commission for Resistance to Colonization and the Wall, told AFP. “This incursion is unprecedented (…), there are snipers on the roofs and special forces deployed” in the camp, he added. Traders were on strike this Saturday in Tulkarem to protest against this raid, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa.
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Among the victims, Qais Fathi Nasrallah, 16, died after being “hit in the head by Israeli fire” in the Tulkarem displaced persons camp, the Palestinian Ministry of Health and the Palestinian Press Agency said on Friday. Wafa. Salim Faisal Ghanem, 30, was “killed by Israeli troops” on Friday in the nearby Nour Shams camp, according to Wafa.
The Nour Shams raid comes against a backdrop of intensifying violence in the occupied West Bank since the start of the war in the Gaza Strip, triggered by the October 7 Hamas attack against Israel. Since then, at least 479 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers in the West Bank.