JENIN (Palestine Foundation Information Center) Seven Palestinian young men were martyred, and ten others were wounded in a large-scale military operation carried out by Israeli occupation forces (IOF) in the town of Qabatiya, south of Jenin, that lasted nearly ten hours and destroyed the town’s infrastructure.
The seven martyrs were identified as Mohammad Khalid Abu Rob, Omar Hamza Abu Rob, Ahmad Maher Zakarneh, Mustafa Faisal Zakarneh, Fadi Joudat Hanaysheh, Mohammad Omar Kmeil, and Shadi Sami Zakarneh.
Meanwhile, two young people among the wounded were run over by a military jeep, whereas press crews were assaulted by IOF gunfire and tear gas grenades.
The IOF began the operation with Israeli special forces’ infiltration into a house near the Ezzat Abu Al-Rub School in the town, before the IOF, escorted by military reinforcements, stormed the site, and bombed the house with five Energa shells, resulting in the martyrdom of five young men.
Footage that went viral on social media show three young men killed after being shot on the rooftop of the besieged house, and the Israeli soldiers mistreating their bodies, discarding them from the roof of the besieged home before a military bulldozer took their bodies away.
Later on, an Israeli bulldozer began to demolish the besieged house.
The body of one of the martyrs was found under the rubble after the IOF withdrew from the town.
On Thursday evening hours, two young men were killed, and another young man and a child were injured in an IOF drone strike that targeted a vehicle near the town’s café complex.
During the operations, the IOF besieged four homes in the vicinity of the town’s schools complex, and imposed a curfew on the site, detaining more than 1,200 students in Qabatiya School and Izzat Abu Al-Rub School, inside their schools until late in the evening.
Meanwhile, the crews of the adjacent Education Directorate were also detained in their offices.
The PIC correspondent confirmed that IOF soldiers prevented the Red Crescent crews from reaching the besieged house, adding that they detonated a bomb on the rooftop of one of the houses.
With the martyrdom of the seven youths in Qabatiya, the death toll in the West Bank, including Occupied Jerusalem, has risen since October 7, 2023, to 714 martyrs, including 160 children, 10 women, and 9 elderly.
In a related context, a young man was wounded by Israeli gunfire at dawn Friday, during the storming of Qalandia, north of Occupied Jerusalem.
According to local sources, the IOF stormed the airport neighborhood in Qalandia, and started shooting, leading to a serious injury of a young man with live bullets in the abdomen, before he was transferred to hospital.
The IOF launched this morning a large-scale raid and arrests campaign across the West Bank, leading to clashes with resistance fighters.
