The raid came amid rising tensions between Israel and Palestine. A Palestinian was killed and several others injured on Saturday, April 9, in exchanges of fire during an Israeli army operation in the Palestinian camp of Jenin, where the perpetrator of the deadly attack on Thursday is from. in Tel Aviv.
Ahmed Al-Saadi, 25, died in the clashes, Palestinian officials said. According to local sources, he was a member of Islamic Jihad, the main Palestinian armed Islamist group after Hamas and which has several fighters in the Jenin camp, a stronghold of Palestinian armed factions in the West Bank, Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967.
A compact crowd carried his body on a stretcher covered with an Islamic Jihad flag during his funeral, an Agence France-Presse photographer reported on the spot.
The Palestinian Red Crescent also reported 12 Palestinian injuries, including several by gunshot, during this Israeli army operation, which ended at midday.
Bennett gives carte blanche to security forces
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on Friday gave the security forces carte blanche to “conquer” a new wave of “terror” in Israel, after the armed attack, Thursday evening, in the center of Tel Aviv, which left three dead, all Israelis, and a dozen injured.
Following a manhunt in the streets of the Israeli metropolis, the security forces located and killed in an exchange of fire the assailant, Raëd Hazem, 28 years old. A Palestinian “without known affiliation” to an armed faction, according to Israeli intelligence, and originating from Jenin.
The Tel Aviv attack was welcomed by Islamic Jihad and Hamas, but condemned by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who is also the leader of the secular Fatah party.
After the attack that killed five people last week in Bnei Brak, an ultra-Orthodox Jewish town on the outskirts of Tel Aviv, the Israeli army carried out an operation in the area of Jenin, where the assailant was also from. .
At least three fighters from Islamic Jihad, the main Palestinian armed Islamist movement after Hamas, were killed in exchanges of fire in this densely populated camp, which had been at the heart of the clashes during the second Intifada, Palestinian uprising in the early 2000s .
Twenty years ago, after deadly anti-Israeli attacks, the army launched a large-scale offensive in Jenin, during which 53 Palestinians, more than half civilians, and 23 Israeli soldiers were killed during ten days of intense fighting.