Israel kill two Palestinians, destroys even more of Nur Shams camp
Widespread destruction to the Nur Shams refugee camp in the Tulkarem area caused by Israeli forces during a raid on 5 September 2023
Ayman Nobani reports in Al Jazeeera:
Israeli forces have killed a young Palestinian man and seriously injured another during a large raid on a refugee camp in the northern occupied West Bank city of Tulkarem, damaging infrastructure in the camp.
Another Palestinian was killed hours later on Tuesday, after allegedly opening fire at Israeli soldiers in an illegal Jewish settlement in the West Bank.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health announced that the man killed in Tulkarem was 21-year-old Ayed Samih Khaled Abu Harb, noting he was shot in the head. A funeral procession was held for him at 11am.
Israeli forces, with armoured tractors, stormed the overcrowded Nur Shams refugee camp from several fronts at dawn, inciting armed resistance from Palestinian fighters.
They bulldozed the road leading to the camp, which is minutes from Tulkarem city, and destroyed a number of homes and shops, as well as infrastructure, before withdrawing three hours later.
‘They destroyed everything’
Taha al-Irani, head of the camp’s popular committee, spoke to Al Jazeera from the camp on Tuesday about the level of destruction and the shock of Abu Harb being killed and another man injured.
“I want to assure you that the martyr [Ayed], was just standing at his front door when he was killed, and the man in critical condition is a taxi driver who was headed to work,” al-Irani, 50, said. “It’s total destruction in the camp … The main road tying the camp to other cities – to Tulkarem, Nablus, Ramallah – was partially destroyed.”
Nur Shams refugee camp, established in 1952, is one of the two camps in Tulkarem and was built to house Palestinian refugees from the Haifa area following the 1948 Nakba, or ethnic cleansing of Palestine by Zionist militias.
Mohammad Abu Talal, a 39-year-old supermarket owner, told Al Jazeera: “The army entered with bulldozers and tractors. They destroyed the shop, they destroyed everything.”