Senior Hamas official involved in West Bank attacks nabbed in Jenin raid

A senior Hamas official was arrested during an Israeli operation in the West Bank Palestinian city of Jenin, the Israel Defense Forces, Israel Police, and Shin Bet security service said.

According to a joint statement, IDF reservists, Border Police officers, and Shin Bet officers arrested Omar Fayed, one of the heads of Hamas’s military infrastructure, during a joint operation.

Fayed has been involved in a number of recent shooting attacks on IDF soldiers and planning other attacks, the statement said.

Two members of the security forces were lightly wounded in the operation, the statement said, without elaborating.

Violence in the West Bank has soared since October 7, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists burst into Israel from Gaza by land, air, and sea in a shock assault in which they massacred more than 1,200 people and seized some 253 hostages. In response to the attack, the deadliest in the country’s history, Israel vowed to eliminate Hamas from the Gaza Strip, where the terror group has ruled since 2007, and return the hostages.

Since the beginning of the war, 3,050 suspects have been arrested in the West Bank, 1,350 of whom are affiliated with Hamas, the IDF said.

According to the Palestinian Authority health ministry, some 300 West Bank Palestinians have been killed in that time.

Based on military estimates, the vast majority of those killed since October 7 were shot during clashes amid arrest raids, and many of them, according to data seen by The Times of Israel, were armed with either a firearm or an explosive device.

The IDF is aware of at least three cases of uninvolved Palestinians being killed by troops in recent months, and a handful of cases of settlers killing Palestinians, which are still under investigation.

Source » timesofisrael.com