Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned on Thursday the Israeli "crime" perpetrated at predawn in the West Bank city of Tulkarem. In a statement issued Thursday, he called upon the international community and the Quartet to condemn such terrorist attacks, holding the Israeli government full responsibility of any future results.
The statement added that this crime is a part of Israeli continued measures aimed at blowing the situation up so as not to compel with its obligations under the Road Map plan and Sharm el-Sheikh understandings.
Palestinian witnesses reported late Wednesday night that Israeli troops killed five people in the West Bank city of Tulkarem. The incident took place during an Israeli arrest operation in this West Bank city. Israeli sources, cited by Haaretz, said the aim of the operation was to arrest a leading Islamic Jihad activist in the area. Palestinian sources claimed Israeli special forces broke into Nor-Shams camp in the city and sieged a number of Palestinian houses inside it; assassinating five of its inhabitants.
Four of the Palestinians were killed on the spot. The fifth was seriously wounded and died later in an Israeli hospital.
According to Palestinian sources, three of the victims were boys between 14 and 17 years of age who were not known members of any group. One of the dead was identified as a member of the Islamic Jihad. Later, other sources said one of the three assassinated Palestinians is an Islamic Jihad member and the other two affiliate to the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas.
On his part, a senior Islamic Jihad leader said the Israeli operation will not pass without punishment. "The Palestinian people are able to retaliate on the Israeli crimes which dismantle peace process", Mohammed Al-Hindi told RNA.
When asked about the kind and the place of retaliation, Al-Hindi said "Resistants will choose them".
On Wednesday night, a young British Jewish student was killed after a Palestinian stabbed him with a knife in the Old City of Jerusalem, israeli police sources said. His companion, a fellow student from the United States, was moderately wounded.
