After a deadly attack on an Israeli soldier on Saturday October 8 in East Jerusalem, a second Israeli soldier was killed on Tuesday October 11. The assault this time occurred in an area of the West Bank.
“Two assailants driving in a vehicle approached the town of Shavei Shomron and opened fire on Israeli soldiers” who were leading “operations” in this area, the Israeli army said in a brief message, stating that a 21-year-old soldier who had died of his injuries.
Shavei Shomron is an Israeli settlement of just over 1,000 inhabitants founded in the late 1970s and located near Nablus, a large city in the northern West Bank, the scene of clashes and Israeli operations in recent months.
In the wake of deadly anti-Israeli attacks in March and April, the army increased operations and arrests in the West Bank, a Palestinian territory occupied by the Jewish state since 1967, especially in the areas of Jenin and Nablus . These Israeli raids, often interspersed with clashes with the Palestinian population, left more than a hundred dead on the Palestinian side, the heaviest toll in the West Bank for nearly seven years, according to the United Nations (UN).
Emergence of a group of fighters
At the same time, in recent months, Nablus has seen the emergence of a new group of fighters called The Lions’ Den, in tribute to Ibrahim Al-Nabulsi, a young fighter nicknamed the “Lion of Nablus” and killed in August by the Israeli army, after having united hundreds, even thousands, of young Palestinians with his strong rhetoric. On Tuesday, this group also claimed responsibility for a series of attacks against Israeli positions around Nablus.
Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said Israel would continue to search for those responsible for the attack. “We won’t stop until we catch the killers”Mr. Lapid said, according to a statement from his office.
“We will catch the terrorist and those who helped him. Counter-terrorist operations will continue and intensify”for his part, declared on Twitter the Israeli Minister of Defense, Benny Gantz, about this deadly attack.
The Lions’ Den group reacted to Gantz’s remarks by calling on the people of Nablus to support them. “We ask our honorable citizens to support us and comply with our instructions”the group said in a statement.
Tensions in Shuafat
An attack on Saturday evening killed an 18-year-old Israeli soldier, shot dead at the Chouafat checkpoint, a Palestinian refugee camp in East Jerusalem, an area occupied and annexed by Israel. Since then, the Israeli army and police have been conducting a manhunt to try to find a 22-year-old Palestinian suspected of the attack, which also injured three people, including a 30-year-old Israeli, who was seriously injured by gunshot wounds. head.
The Israeli security services notably surrounded the Shuafat refugee camp, the scene of clashes between young Palestinians and local forces, according to a photographer from Agence France-Presse (AFP) on the spot.
“There is suffering in Chouafat. Sick or injured people are struggling to get out of the camp to be treated, the bakeries are empty, doctors and nurses are unable to access them”Israeli Arab MP Ahmed Tibi told AFP on the spot. “To get out of the camp, you have to queue in your car for three or four hours. It is a collective punishment”he added.
Residents of the refugee camp called on Tuesday evening to “civil disobedience” to protest against the measures taken by the Israeli authorities.