Three killed in Israel West Bank drone strike

Turmus‘ayya, Palestinian Territories (AFP):

Israel’s military on Wednesday killed three Palestinians in a West Bank drone strike.

Kamal Abu al-Roub, deputy Jenin governor, said there were “three dismembered bodies inside” the car which he said had been hit by missiles. Roub cited information from firefighters sent to extinguish the blaze which engulfed the vehicle.

Israeli army launched the strike after a Palestinian man was killed earlier Wednesday in an occupied West Bank village attacked by hundreds of Israelis.

Residents of Turmus Ayya put the number of Israeli settlers involved in the attack on their village at between 200 and 300, while AFP journalists saw scorched homes, buildings and wounded people being evacuated by ambulance.

“Settlers shot at us and when the police and the Israeli army arrived they shot at us with rubber bullets and fired tear gas,” resident Awad Abu Samra told AFP.

Israel has occupied the West Bank since the Six-Day War of 1967. Excluding annexed east Jerusalem, the territory is now home to around 490,000 Israelis who live in settlements considered illegal under international law.

Lafi Adeeb, Turmus Ayya mayor, told AFP that 35 houses were damaged, around 50 cars torched and farmland set ablaze.

Israeli army said in a statement a UAV struck “a suspicious vehicle”.

The strike is the first in the West Bank by the Israelis since August 2006, a Palestinian intelligence source told AFP.

The Israeli military said security forces entered Turmus Ayya “to extinguish the fires, prevent clashes and to collect evidence” after “Israeli civilians burned vehicles and possessions belonging to Palestinians”.

While protecting the firefighters, Israeli police became “the target of violence by dozens of Palestinians”, a police statement said. A shot was fired in their direction, and an officer returned fire “towards a rioter suspected of shooting at him,” the police said.

‘Praying’

“I saw a bunch of guys in masks trying to throw rocks at our house,” Mohammed Zakaraia Abdulla, 18, a Palestinian-American visiting from Chicago, told AFP.

“We locked all the doors. We ran downstairs. We hid… praying that we’d come out safe.” One of his relatives was shot dead during the attack, he said.

After the unrest, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “All citizens of Israel are obligated to obey the law,” and “we will not allow” disturbances in the territory.

A statement from Netanyahu’s office said the government would fast-track settlement expansion at Eli.

US concern

“Our answer to terrorism is to strike at it forcefully and build up our country,” he said, after repeated calls by the United Nations for Israel to halt settlement construction.

Israeli anti-settlement organisation Peace Now said Netanyahu’s announcement was intended “to appease fervent and fanatic settlers”.

A US State Department spokesman said Washington is “deeply concerned” by rising violence in the West Bank, and that the reports of an attack by Israelis on a Palestinian village Wednesday were “troubling”.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in neighbouring Jordan condemned “in the strongest terms the attacks of Israeli settlers on a number of villages in the occupied Palestinian territories”.

Sinan al-Majali, the ministry spokesman, said in a statement that “unilateral measures” including settlement expansion undermine foundations for peace.

Aside from Turmus Ayya, on Tuesday attacks were reported in other Palestinian towns.

The surge in violence linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict so far this year has killed at least 174 Palestinians, 25 Israelis, a Ukrainian and an Italian.