Sunday’s events came four months after a fierce cross-border air war between Israel and the militant groups in Gaza, when Hamas, a chief rival of the Palestinian Authority and a sworn enemy of Israel, presented itself as the defender of the Palestinians in Jerusalem and the West Bank.
The Israeli raids also followed this month’s escape of six Palestinian inmates, most of them belonging to Islamic Jihad, from a maximum-security prison in northern Israel. Palestinians had celebrated the escape and were disappointed when the last two of the fugitives were captured a week ago in Jenin, their hometown.
The Hamas leadership in Gaza said in a statement on Sunday that “the blood of the martyrs will not be wasted.” Seeking further to destabilize the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank, it called on “the masses of our Palestinian people in the valiant West Bank to escalate the resistance against the occupier at all points of contact.”
Israel’s chief military spokesman, Brig. Gen. Ran Kochav, told public radio that because of Hamas’s losses and its desire to create linkages between the West Bank and Gaza, Israel was preparing for possible rocket fire from the Hamas-run coastal enclave.
The Israeli military said the raids took place in Jenin, Kufr Dan, Qabatiya and Burqin in the northern West Bank and in the village of Bidu, northwest of Jerusalem. Islamic Jihad claimed Osama Yasir Soboh, who was killed in a shootout in Burqin, as one of its members. That is where the two Israeli soldiers were injured. Palestinian Authority officials identified the second Palestinian killed in the confrontation in Burqin as Yusuf Soboh, 16.
The three claimed by Hamas were killed in what the military described as a firefight with special police counterterrorism forces in Bidu.
Iyad Abuheweila contributed reporting from Gaza.