At least three Palestinians were wounded in the confrontation at the Qalandia refugee camp near the West Bank city of Ramallah, as troops demolished the home of a militant who Israel claimed had killed an Israeli man in June.
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Confrontations and clashes have erupted in the past over such demolitions, but they have rarely been as deadly as Monday’s at the Qalandiya refugee camp, just beyond a checkpoint leading from east Jerusalem to the occupied West Bank.
“During the activity, suspects opened fire at the forces”, the military said in a statement, referring to the raid at the camp.
Israeli forces shot three Palestinians, with two confirmed dead by Palestinian hospital sources.
Israeli authorities have begun demolishing the homes of Palestinians suspected of carrying out violent attacks in Israel.
The attack was the latest in a wave of violence in which Palestinian assaults on Israeli civilians and soldiers have become an nearly daily occurrence.
Before demolishing the Shaheen home, located on the top floor of a three-story building in the middle of the crowded camp, the army ordered all residents in the area to leave their homes.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu linked the brutal terror attack in Paris Friday with another in the West Bank, saying Islamic extremism is responsible for both.
Israel has renewed a home demolition tactic that it says is a legal and effective tool to deter attacks.
Israelis can’t afford to dismiss such propaganda, no matter how outrageous it might be, said Ken Jacobson, deputy national director of the Anti-Defamation league.
Israeli security services arrested the perpetrator of the attacks on the Litman family. “All Abbas had to do was lie and tell his people that Israel is planning to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque – something that more than half the Palestinian population believes – and then sit back and let young terrorists do the dirty work”.
Israeli leaders expressed condolences to the French over the Paris terror attacks, but quickly stressed Sunday that Israel and the West face the same foe in radical Islam and that Israel is on the front line. A number of people were injured, said the Health Ministry.
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Israel has faced a series of small-scale attacks by Palestinians in recent weeks, many of them carried out using weapons as simple as knives.
