Israeli Drone Missile Kills Three Children in Jenin

Tamara Nassar 

26 October 2023

A man inspect an area splattered with blood 

Palestinians inspect the site of the missile that was fired during an Israeli army raid, killing three Palestinians in the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.  Mohammed Nasser APA images

The Israeli army is taking “the gloves off” in the occupied West Bank, a military commander told so-called security officers and the heads of Jewish-only settlements there.

This comes as an Israeli military drone fired a missile near a cemetery in the Jenin refugee camp overnight on Wednesday in the third aerial attack in the occupied West Bank this week.

The attack killed three Palestinian children.

“We are aggressive,” Brigadier General Avi Bluth, head of Israeli occupation forces in the West Bank, added.

“We are going to see more offensive operations to cleanse terrorist nests like what was done in the Nur Shams refugee camp,” he added, referring to a massacre in the refugee camp located in the northern occupied West Bank where US-supplied Israeli Apache helicopters killed 10 Palestinians, including four children.

Around 1 am on Wednesday, Israeli occupation forces, accompanied by bulldozers, invaded the occupied West Bank village of Burqin and the area around Jenin refugee camp. Israeli snipers fired from the rooftops of homes and buildings.

An Israeli weaponized drone fired a missile at a group of people near a cemetery in the Jenin refugee camp, killing three Palestinian children.

The children were identified as 17-year-old Muhammad Anas Abu Qatna, 16-year-old Muhammad Qadri Masoud and 15-year-old Eid Nabil Mirie.

At least 23 others were injured, and Israeli forces prevented ambulances from reaching them for 20 minutes, according to a field investigation by Defense for Children International-Palestine.

Israeli forces fired towards those who tried to approach them, local sources told the Wafa news agency. This also came as electricity was cut off in several areas in the city of Jenin during the invasion.

Saraya al-Quds, the military wing of the Islamic Jihad resistance group, said the Jenin Brigades, a group associated with it, had engaged with Israeli forces and caused injuries among them.

Meanwhile, Israeli occupation forces fired “indiscriminately” at a group of Palestinian youth in Qalandiya refugee camp on Wednesday, according to DCIP.

The youth threw stones at heavily armored military vehicles that were withdrawing from the camp at dawn.

Israeli fire hit 17-year-old Ahmad Ghaleb Mtair in the head and chest, killing him. He was standing on the roof of a nearby house, the rights group reported.

Israel warplanes shelled a mosque in the Jenin refugee camp earlier this week.

Israeli army killings in occupied West Bank cities, towns and refugee camps, particularly in the context of demonstrations of solidarity with Gaza, have become somewhat of a daily occurrence since 7 October, when Hamas launched a surprise operation against Israel, dealing it a massive strategic defeat.

In response, Israel unleashed a campaign of revenge and genocide on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Israel’s vengence has extended towards Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, as well as Palestinian citizens of Israel.

Israel also imposed punishments on Palestinian prisoners in its custody as well, cutting off water and electricity to so-called security prisoners.

Two Palestinians died in Israeli detention in unclear circumstances within 24 hours this week.

Arafat Yaser Hamdan had only been in Israeli custody for the third day before he was announced dead.

The 25-year-old had never been arrested before.

He was taken from his home in Beit Sira village in the Ramallah area in the occupied West Bank to Ofer military prison by Israeli forces on 22 October.

Hamdan’s family said Israeli forces beat him during his arrest from his home.

Israeli authorities “began carrying out systematic, premeditated assassinations against prisoners, based on testimonies and accounts from recently released detainees,” the Palestinian Authority prisoners commission said.

Israel’s arrest campaigns are violent, as they destroy property and abuse family members in doing so, prisoners’ rights group Addameer said said. They also include death threats, the commission added.

Meanwhile, the prisoners commission asserted that a Hamas detainee who died in Israeli detention on Monday was killed.

Omar Hamzah Daraghmeh, who had only been arrested for two weeks, appeared virtually at Ofer military court on the day he died, alongside his lawyer.

The 58-year-old’s attorney asked him if he was in good health, and Daraghmeh said that he was, according to the prisoners commission.

Hamas, of which Daraghmeh was a prominent member, said his death was “a cowardly assassination, for which the occupation bears full responsibility.”

The prisoners commission said it was considering “the death of any prisoner in the wake of the collective aggression and extermination of our people in Gaza an act of assassination.”

This brings the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli soldier and settler violence in the occupied West Bank to over 100 since 7 October, UN monitoring group OCHA reported.

Thirty three Palestinian children have been killed in the occupied West Bank during that period, DCIP said, bringing the number of Palestinian children killed in the territory since the beginning of the year to 73.

Israeli forces have injured more than 1,800 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank during that period, including nearly 160 children, according to OCHA. The vast majority of Palestinians were injured by Israeli forces during demonstrations in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.

More than a quarter of all injuries are due to live ammunition. Jewish Israeli settlers have injured almost 40 Palestinians.

Settlers have carried out nearly 140 attacks against Palestinians since 7 October, according to OCHA. These figures include injuries against Palestinians as well as damage to their property.