NABLUS: Zionist forces killed three Palestinians yesterday during a daytime raid, leaving a vehicle in the West Bank city of Nablus riddled with bullet holes. The Palestinian health ministry and the Zionist entity’s security forces both confirmed the three deaths. The Palestinian Authority condemned the raid as a “summary execution”.

Sources in the Palestinian Fatah movement identified two of the dead as Adham Mabrouk and Muhammad Al-Dakhil, who they said were affiliated with the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades. According to a Palestinian security source, “(Zionist) soldiers who were in a civilian vehicle intercepted a Palestinian vehicle and directly fired at it, which led to the deaths of three young men.”

AFP reporters in Nablus saw a bullet-riddled windshield of a silver car that eyewitnesses said Zionist forces targeted. The witnesses, who requested anonymity citing security concerns, said one of the vehicles carrying Zionist forces was a yellow taxi. Hundreds of Palestinians thronged the streets outside the Rafidia hospital in Nablus as the bodies of the men were carried out.

The PA foreign ministry statement said in a statement that it “holds the (Zionist) government headed by Naftali Bennett fully and directly responsible for this heinous crime”. Ties between the PA, led by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and the Zionist entity remain fraught, though there have been signs of a thaw in recent months following a series of high-level meetings, including Defense Minister Benny Gantz hosting Abbas at his home.

But Palestinian assailants have continued to attack Zionist forces in the West Bank, and the Zionist entity has responded with lethal force and frequent raids against groups it describes as militant cells. Some 475,000 Zionists live in settlements among around 2.9 million Palestinians in the West Bank, fueling tensions in the area that Palestinians claim as a part of their future state. Bennett, the former head of a settler lobbying council, opposes Palestinian statehood and has ruled out formal peace talks with the PA under his watch, saying he will focus instead on improving economic conditions in the West Bank. – AFP