AQABAT JABR, West Bank (Dispatches) – Zionist troops have killed at least five Palestinians and injured dozens in a raid on refugee camp in the occupied West Bank on Monday, the latest bloodshed in the region that will likely further exacerbate tensions.
The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates says it will not stand idly by in the face of the bloody shooting of Palestinian men during the raid on Ariha, stressing it will hold the Zionist regime to account for its crimes against Palestinians.
“The State of Palestine deplores Israel’s recurrent targeted killings and unlawful use of collective punishment, which take place in flagrant violation of the most underlying principles of humanity, morality, dignity, and rule of law,” the ministry said in a statement.
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad resistance movement has vowed that it will not back down from their struggle against occupation forces, after Israeli media reported that Palestinian resistance fighters were killed in the raid.
On Sunday, the Aqabat Jabr refugee camp battalion of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Palestinian Hamas resistance movement, declared three days of rage over the Israeli regime’s tight siege and incursions.
On this note, the head of the Hamas political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, issued a statement saying “the al-Qassam Brigades will continue its operations with all the revolutionaries until the [Zionist] invaders are defeated.”
The statement said that “the ongoing killings carried out by the enemy in the West Bank will have disastrous repercussions on the Israeli regime,” adding that “all international or regional interventions will not succeed in stopping the revolutionary tide of our people, and the enemy will not enjoy calm.”
The spokesman for the Islamic Jihad Movement, Tareq Ezzedin, also said the new crime committed by the criminal Israeli occupation at dawn today, Monday, against the Palestinian people and resistance fighters in Aqabat Jabr, will not terrorize them.”
“The occupation has been established on our land since the occupation of Palestine through killing, destruction and terrorism. It is an entity that only understands the language of force, and our Palestinian people are alive and will not back down from their resistance until they are defeated and forced to pull out from the entire soil of Palestine.”
The Zionist regime’s blockade on Ariha was imposed following an alleged shooting attempt at an Israeli-run restaurant located outside the West Bank city. No one was hurt in the purported incident, but the regime’s military alleges the shooter escaped into Ariha.
The development comes less than a day after Zionist troops killed an unarmed Palestinian man in the West Bank.
Over the past months, the occupying regime has ramped up attacks on Palestinian towns and cities throughout the occupied territories. As a result of these attacks, dozens of Palestinians have lost their lives and many others have been arrested.