An Israel Defense Forces naval commando soldier, and two top Hamas figures from Nablus, were killed Friday morning at the Askar refugee camp in the West Bank city. Incidents which flared later at the refugee camp left two more Palestinians dead.
Advertisement
The IDF soldier killed was identified as Staff Sergeant Roi Oren, from Moshav Udim, near Netanya.
The Friday morning clash occurred when naval commandos came to arrest Hamis Abu Salam, a known leading figure in Hamas' military wing in the Nablus area. The IDF soldiers surrounded Abu Salam's home.
Staff Sgt. Oren was deployed in a unit which supported this encirclement operation; he observed the raid from a house located some 15 meters from the Abu Salam residence.
Following IDF engagement orders, after the house was surrounded, the soldiers called out to Abu Salam via loudspeaker, demanding that he turn himself in.
Instead, at 4:40 A.M., shots were fired apparently from two rifles at windows on the building's third (top) floor. Though he was wearing a combat helmet, Oren was mortally wounded by shots to the head.
Navy commandos retaliated with rifle fire and also anti-tank missiles. After this retaliatory fire hit the building, a powerful explosion decimated its third floor. The soldiers then demanded anew that residents turn themselves in, and residents, including women and children, of the building's bottom two floors exited the residence. None of these residents was injured.
IDF soldiers discovered a huge weapons plant when they entered what was left of the building's third floor. Among the ruins, they found the corpse of Abu Salam, and also that of another Hamas suspect, Faiz al-Sadar. Two rifles and a pistol were found next to the corpses.
On Friday afternoon, an IDF bulldozer destroyed the remnants of the building.
Riots erupted at the Askar camp after the Friday morning firefight. According to Palestinian sources, two residents died in these altercations. They were Fauzi al-Alami, 37, who reportedly died of complications related to tear gas inhalation, and Mohammad al-Tak, 20, who was reportedly shot in the stomach.
The IDF Spokesman's Office said soldiers fired rubber-coated bullets and tear gas during these Askar altercations, but did not use regular bullets.
The two killed Hamas men, Abu Salam and al-Sadar, were involved in a number of terror attacks in recent years, Israeli security officials charge. They enlisted suicide bombers and helped manufacture weapons for Hamas.
Security officials suspect the two had been trying to recruit a suicide bomber for an imminent attack inside Israel, despite the Islamic organization's formal allegiance to the hudna
Haaretz.com, the online edition of Haaretz Newspaper in Israel, offers real-time breaking news, opinions and analysis from Israel and the Middle East. Haaretz.com provides extensive and in-depth coverage of Israel, the Jewish World and the Middle East, including defense, diplomacy, the Arab-Israeli conflict, the peace process, Israeli politics, Jerusalem affairs, international relations, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the Israeli business world and Jewish life in Israel and the Diaspora.
