An Israel Air Force missile strike on a car killed two Palestinian militants, including a leading Hamas man, in the Jabalya refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip on Tuesday afternoon. Hassan Al-Madhoun was killed together with Hamas operative Fawzi Abu Al-Qara. Nine bystanders were wounded in the airstrike in the Jabalya refugee camp, Palestinian doctors said. | And a traditional car swarm followed. |
The two men were travelling in a car with a red Palestinian Authority security licence plate, witnesses said. The missiles hit the car only a few minutes after a convoy carrying Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas passed through the area, according to Palestinian security officials. A spokesman from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, with whom Madhoun had previously worked, said that "our retaliation will be equal to the size of the crime." The spokesman, who identified himself as Abu Ahmed, was masked and carried an M-16 assault rifle. Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said Israel was sabotaging Palestinian efforts to shore up a truce by carrying out the air strike.
In a separate incident on Tuesday evening, Palestinian sources said IDF ground forces backed up by helicopters surrounded two homes in eastern Jenin in which wanted men were suspected to be hiding out.
IDF arrests 12 fugitives in Jenin
Israel Defense Forces soldiers arrested 12 Islamic Jihad fugitives in the northern West Bank before dawn on Tuesday, including an 18-year-old Palestinian from Jenin who planned to carry out a suicide bombing. An IDF soldier was lightly wounded by a bomb during the raid.
The raid in the city of Jenin and the nearby town of Qabatya was the latest in a series of IDF operations against armed groups, with particular focus on the Islamic Jihad, which has carried out suicide bombings and other attacks since the disengagement from Gaza. Meanwhile, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday morning fired two Qassam rockets at the western Negev region. IDF operations in the Jenin and Tul Karm areas are expected to continue for several days, accompanied by strict travel curbs on Palestinians living around the two cities. Heading the most-wanted list in Jenin is Iyad Abu-Roub, believed to be the Jihad commander of the northern West Bank since the assassination of the Jihad's former military chief there a week ago. The IDF operation is being carried out largely by the Nahal infantry brigade. In a separate operation in the village of Zurif, located west of Bethlehem, eight men suspected of belonging to Hamas were arrested overnight.