Palestine is a region of the eastern Mediterranean region that includes parts of modern Israel as well as the Palestinian territories of Gaza (on the Mediterranean Sea’s coast) and the West Bank (west of the Jordan River).
The term Palestine has been variously and sometimes controversially associated with this small region, which some claim also includes Jordan.
According to the Palestinian health ministry, one person was killed in Beit Fajar and two others were killed in Jenin in the occupied West Bank.
According to the ministry, Ammar Shafiq Abu Afifa was killed by “Israeli occupation forces shooting at him near the town of Beit Fajar.”
When contacted by the AFP news agency, the Israeli army did not immediately respond. According to the official Palestinian news agency Wafa, Afifa was a resident of the Al-Aroub refugee camp north of Hebron in the occupied West Bank.
Separately, Israeli border police and Palestinian health officials reported that Israeli forces killed two Palestinians before dawn on Tuesday after coming under fire during an arrest raid in the northern West Bank.
According to Israeli border police, officers and undercover cops entered the Jenin refugee camp to apprehend a suspect “wanted for terrorist activity.”
“After the suspect was apprehended, as the forces left the house, heavy fire was opened from several directions, and undercover forces operating at the scene responded with live fire,” according to police.
They claimed that as police approached their vehicles, another assailant fired at them, “who responded with accurate fire.”
According to Israeli border police, officers and undercover cops entered the Jenin refugee camp to apprehend a suspect “wanted for terrorist activity.”
Using excessive force
The killings come just over a week after Israeli forces killed a 14-year-old boy, Mohammed Shehadeh, in the West Bank town of Al-Khader.
Palestinian and international human rights organizations have long condemned Israel’s alleged excessive use of force. According to B’Tselem, an Israeli rights organization, 77 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank last year.
Amnesty International stated in a new report last month that Israel was committing “apartheid against Palestinians” and must be held accountable for treating them as “an inferior racial group.”
Following the 1967 Middle East war, Israel occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
International law considers Israeli settlements on Palestinian land to be illegal. In the West Bank and East Jerusalem today, between 600,000 and 750,000 Israeli settlers live in at least 250 settlements.