AL-QUDS (Dispatches) –
Zionist troops shot and martyred three Palestinians Sunday in the occupied West Bank, the military said, the latest bloodshed in a year-long wave of violence in the region.
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, an armed offshoot of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party, claimed the martyrs as members.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said the men were killed by Zionist fire near the city of Nablus and identified them as Jihad Mohammed al-Shami, 24, Uday Othman al-Shami, 22 and Mohammed Raed Dabeek, 18.
The killings took place at dawn on Sunday when Zionist troops opened fire at four Palestinians in their vehicle near the Sarra military checkpoint, southwest of Nablus, according to the Palestinian Ma’an news agency.
The troops arrested the fourth Palestinian after the shooting near the checkpoint.
The occupation fired at four Palestinians at the checkpoint, killing three of them while inside their vehicle in a “targeted assassination,” the official Wafa news agency said.
Wafa cited witnesses in the village adjacent to the checkpoint as saying that shortly after the shooting, occupation troops stormed shops and seized the recordings of surveillance cameras to keep their crime untold.
The latest Zionist crime brings up the number of Palestinians killed by occupation forces since the beginning of the year to 84, including 15 children and an elderly woman, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
The killings came two days after Zionist troops killed three Palestinians in a raid in Jenin in the northern occupied West Bank, less than 48 hours after six others were killed in another raid in the city.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health said the three men shot dead on Thursday morning were identified as Ahmad Fashafsheh, 22, Sufian Fakhouri, 26, and Nayef Malaysheh, 25.
The three Palestinian men were shot dead inside a car in the village of Jaba, south of Jenin, in what has been described by Palestinians as an “execution.”
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.
Most of the raids have focused on Nablus and Jenin, where Zionist troops have been trying to stifle a growing Palestinian resistance in the occupied cities.
Local and international rights groups have condemned the regime’s excessive use of force and “shoot-to-kill policy” against Palestinians.
In another development, left-wing activists in occupied Palestine staged a protest in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Al-Quds to show their support for Palestinians who are facing displacement from their homes.
They rejected the displacement policy implemented by the occupying regime’s army in the area.
Last week, rights group Adalah called on the Zionist regime’s supreme court to put pressure on the Tel Aviv regime to remove the checkpoints erected at the entrances to the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood.