JERUSALEM, Feb 23, 2024 (AFP) – Israel’s army said Friday a Palestinian militant on his way to carry out a shooting attack was killed in a drone strike in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin a day earlier.
Yasser Hanun from the Islamic Jihad group had previously been detained for his involvement in the “terrorist organisation’s military activities,” the army said in a statement.
The resident of Jenin refugee camp “was eliminated while en route to carry out another shooting attack,” the statement said, without giving further details.
A witness said weapons in the car exploded after the strike on Thursday.
Hanun was involved in several shooting attacks targeting Israeli communities as well as shooting at soldiers and military posts in the West Bank, the army said.
Palestinian news agency Wafa said two people were killed and four others wounded in the strike.
AFP footage showed a car severely burned from the hit, it’s roof torn as if by a can opener.
“Two successive missiles” struck the car, Usayd Shelbi, who witnessed the strike, told AFP.
“The situation was dangerous. The weapons in the car were exploding,” he said.
The drone strike in Jenin came after three Palestinian gunmen opened fire at cars on a congested West Bank highway near a Jewish settlement on Thursday, killing an Israeli man and wounding eight others.
The gunmen were killed.
The West Bank has seen a surge in violence, to levels unseen in nearly two decades, since the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza began on October 7.
Israeli troops and settlers have killed at least 400 Palestinians in the West Bank since the war began, according to the health ministry in Ramallah.
Islamic Jihad is fighting alongside Hamas militants in Gaza.
The Gaza war erupted after an unprecedented attack by Hamas on Israel which resulted in the deaths of around 1,160 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory bombardment and ground offensive in Gaza has left at least 29,410 Palestinians dead, most of them women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
