DEIR AL-HATAB, West Bank – Israeli troops killed two Palestinian militants in the West Bank on the same day that mourners laid to rest a British-Israeli woman killed in an attack that also killed her two daughters.
Israeli-Palestinian violence has risen in the recent week, coinciding with the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, Jewish Passover, and Christian Easter.
“I commend the actions of the soldiers who eliminated two terrorists who opened fire on them near Elon Moreh,” a Jewish village near Nablus in the West Bank, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant tweeted.
He went on to say that the troops had “prevented an attack on Israeli civilians.”
The Israeli army reported in a statement that “armed assailants fired shots from a vehicle at the Elon Moreh post.” Soldiers retaliated by firing “at the vehicle and neutralizing two armed assailants.”
According to the army, it seized two M-16 weapons and a handgun.
The two individuals were identified as Saud Abdullah Saud Titi and Mohammad Abu Dhiraa by the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
The two guys were claimed as members of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, the armed wing of Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas’ Fatah faction.
According to a Fatah statement, they were from the adjacent Balata refugee camp.
The event occurred as thousands of mourners gathered Tuesday in a West Bank Israeli settlement for the funeral of a British-Israeli lady slain in a gun attack days earlier.
Since the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel has occupied the West Bank, where hundreds of thousands of Jewish settlers live in Israeli-approved settlements that are illegal under international law.
Israelis carrying national flags lined the rain-soaked highways leading to Lucy Dee’s funeral in Kfar Etzion.
The 48-year-old, also known as Leah in Hebrew, died Monday from injuries sustained three days earlier when her automobile was attacked in the Jordan Valley.
Two of her children, sisters aged 16 and 20, were killed and buried on Sunday.
In a statement, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called the killings “abhorrent,” adding that “the UK condemns this appalling attack on civilians.”
He encouraged “all parties to de-escalate tensions in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, and to end the deadly cycle of violence.”
The most recent uprising began last Wednesday with an Israeli police raid on Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque, which was followed by rocket fire from Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria, as well as a car-ramming in Tel Aviv that killed an Italian tourist.
Alessandro Parini’s body was returned to Rome on Tuesday, after the 36-year-old was killed when a car drove into pedestrians on the city’s coastline on Friday evening.
On Monday, Palestinian mourners gathered near Jericho for the funeral of Mohammed Fayez Balhan, a 15-year-old boy who was killed by Israeli soldiers during a raid in the Jordan Valley.
The army stated that it was attempting to catch “a terror suspect,” and that one individual had been apprehended during the operation.
According to an AFP figure based on Israeli and Palestinian official sources, the fighting has claimed the lives of at least 96 Palestinians, 19 Israelis, one Ukrainian, and one Italian this year.
These figures include combatants and civilians, including minors, on the Palestinian side, and largely civilians, including minors, and three Arab minority members on the Israeli side.
Since the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel has occupied the West Bank.
