On Sunday, Israeli forces killed three Palestinian militants who opened fire on troops in the West Bank, the military said, in the latest bloodshed in a year-long wave of violence in the region.

The Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, an armed offshoot of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah Party, said the men killed were members of the gang.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said the men were killed by Israeli fire near the city of Nablus and identified them as Jihad Mohammed al-Sami, 24, Uday Osman al-Sami, 22, and Mohammed Raed Dabek, 18.

The military said they seized three M16 rifles from the militants after the clash, and one militant surrendered and was arrested.

The shootout took place near the Shura Jeet Dam, an area under Israeli security control west of Nablus. When an AFP correspondent contacted the people of Sura, they said they heard gunshots around 3:30 am local time (Greek time). According to Palestinian medical sources, no dead were brought to the Nablus morgue, suggesting that their bodies are in the possession of the Israeli army.

“The militants opened fire on (Israeli) soldiers in army positions near the Jit junction,” the Israeli army said in a statement. “The soldiers responded with live fire” and “three of the militants were neutralized,” while a fourth surrendered and was detained for questioning, the Israeli military added, whose spokesman later confirmed to AFP that the three neutralized attackers were Palestinians and that they had been killed. .

According to the Israeli military, none of the Israeli soldiers were injured.

Asked by AFP, Palestinian security sources said they currently have no information about the incident.

Sunday’s deaths raised the number of Palestinians killed since the start of the year to 80 as Israel ramped up raids in the West Bank. In 2023, a series of Palestinian attacks against Israelis killed 14 people.

The new violence follows an Israeli military raid last week in the West Bank village of Jamba in which three Palestinian militants were killed. Hours later, a Palestinian gunman opened fire on a busy Tel Aviv street at the start of an Israeli weekend, injuring three people before he was shot dead.

The current round of violence is one of the worst in recent years between Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank. It began last spring after a series of attacks by Palestinians against Israelis triggered nighttime Israeli raids in the West Bank.

Around 150 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in 2022, making the year the deadliest year in those areas since 2004, according to the leading Israeli human rights group B’Tselem. Palestinian attacks on Israelis during the same period claimed the lives of 30 people.

The military says most of the Palestinians killed were militants. However, stone-throwing youths who protested against the invasions and others who did not take part in the clashes also died.

Israel says the raids are necessary to dismantle militant networks and prevent future attacks. However, the attacks seem to intensify rather than subside.

The Palestinians see the raids as Israel’s tightening of 55 years of continuous occupation of the lands they claim to be their future state.

Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem during the 1967 Middle East War.

Source: Associated Press, AFP, APE-MPE.