RAMALLAH (Dispatches) – The Zionist regime’s army has shot and martyred two Palestinian men at a military checkpoint south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, according to Palestinian officials.
The Palestinian health ministry announced just before 2am (11:00 GMT) on Friday that 47-year-old Imad Abu Rasheed was killed with bullets to his stomach, chest and head, with two others seriously wounded, at the Huwwara checkpoint on Route 60 in the northern occupied West Bank.
At 6:30am (03:30 GMT), officials reported that Ramzi Sami Zabara, 35, had succumbed to his wounds from a bullet to the heart.
The circumstances of their killing remain unclear.
In a statement, the Zionist regime’s military claimed that its forces shot at two suspected vehicles after a passing car opened fire at the checkpoint. But the statement did not mention any casualties among troops.
The Gaza-based Hamas and Islamic Jihad resistance movements slammed the fatal shooting, vowing that the resistance of the Palestinian nation will continue until the occupying regime is defeated and an independent Palestinian state is created.
Hamas on Friday called on all Palestinian security services and resistance fighters to follow the path of the martyrs in defense of Palestinian people and to aim their rifles at Zionist troops, who keep killing Palestinians in cold blood and do not shy away from desecrating sacred places and shrines.
The movement added that the northern West Bank city of Nablus, the Askar refugee camp on the eastern outskirts of Nablus, and elsewhere across the West Bank serve as fields of confrontation with Zionist troops.
The Islamic Jihad movement also said that Palestinian people will unleash their fury against the occupying Tel Aviv regime and will keep up resistance against Zionist troops and settlers.
It pointed out that the regime is going to great lengths in order to maintain its so-called security apparatus, which is going down in the face of resistance fighters carrying out operations across the West Bank.
The Zionist regime has stepped up its crackdown across the occupied territories in recent months under different pretexts.
The regime began enforcing the lockdown after reported killing of a Zionist trooper earlier in the month. The sweeping closure has restricted travel in and out of the city for some 200,000 Palestinians.
Since imposing the siege, the forces have been carrying out daily raids throughout the city to hunt down those, who were responsible for the reported death on October 11 of the trooper that the regime says was caused by the Lions’ Den -- an emerging group of Palestinian resistance fighters.