Ramallah, May 22 (RHC)-- Israeli forces have fatally shot three Palestinian young men during an early morning raid on a refugee camp near the city of Nablus in the northern part of the occupied West Bank. The fatalities were caused on Monday after the regime's troops stormed the Balata refugee camp, east of the city of Nablus.
The Palestinian Health Ministry has identified the three young men as 32-year-old Muhammad Bilal Muhammad Zaytoun, 24-year-old Abdullah Yusuf Muhammad Abu-Hamdan, and 30-year-old Fathi Jihad Abdussalam Rizq.
According to local sources, following the bloodshed, the regime's forces blocked the entrance to the camp, preventing ambulances and medical personnel from reaching the wounded. An unspecified number of Palestinians were also injured during the raid on the refugee camp, some of them critically.
Israeli forces, who were accompanied during the raid by two military bulldozers, then surrounded the camp, blocking all entry points and demolishing three Palestinian homes.
Over the past months, Israel has ramped up attacks on Palestinian towns and cities throughout the occupied territories. As a result of these attacks, dozens of Palestinians have lost their lives and many others have been arrested. Most of the raids have targeted the cities of Nablus and Jenin in the occupied West Bank, where the regime's forces have been trying to stifle a growing Palestinian resistance against the occupation.
One of the goals of Israel's raids on various locations across the West Bank has been to raze the structures that belong to the Palestinians, whom the regime accuses of killing Israeli settlers.
Batala was also raided earlier in May, during which Israeli forces killed two young Palestinians and wounded at least seven others. So far this year, the regime's forces have killed scores of Palestinians across the West Bank and the blockaded Gaza Strip.
Dozens of the fatalities were caused after the regime began another bout of back-to-back airstrikes against Gaza on May 9. The conflict marked the worst episode of fighting between Gaza’s resistance factions and the Israeli regime since a 10-day war imposed by Tel Aviv on the territory in 2021.