Sunday events come four months later Fierce Cross-Border Air War Between terrorist groups in Israel and Gaza, when Hamas, a major rival of the Palestinian Authority and a staunch enemy of Israel, presented itself as a defender of Palestinians in Jerusalem and the West Bank.
Israeli raids have also taken place this month after the escape of six Palestinian prisoners, most of whom are linked to Islamic Jihad, from a maximum security prison in northern Israel. The Palestinians had celebrated the Exodus and were disappointed when last two fugitives caught A week ago in Jenin, his hometown.
The Hamas leadership in Gaza said in a statement on Sunday that “the blood of the martyrs will not go to waste.” Seeking to further destabilize the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank, it called for “intensifying resistance against the occupiers at all points of contact with the people of our Palestinian people in the valiant West Bank”.
Israel’s chief military spokesman Brigadier. General Ran Kochov told public radio that Israel was preparing for possible rocket fire from a Hamas-run coastal enclave because of the loss of Hamas and its desire to build links between the West Bank and Gaza.
The Israeli military said the raids took place in Jenin, Kufr Dan, Kabatia and Burkin in the northern West Bank, and in the village of Bidu, northwest of Jerusalem. Islamic Jihad claimed that Osama Yasser Soboh, who was killed in a shootout in Burkin, was one of its members. Two Israeli soldiers were injured there. Palestinian Authority officials have identified the second Palestinian killed in the Burkin conflict as 16-year-old Yusuf Soboh.
All three, claimed by Hamas, were killed in military shelling with Special Police counter-terrorism forces in Bidu.
Iyad Abuhawila contributed reporting from Gaza.