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Israeli forces were shooting at anyone they saw on the streets, said AFP
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JENIN,
Reoccupied West Bank, October 25 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) –
Israeli occupation forces, supported by armored vehicles, swooped down
on Jenin Friday, October 25, and opened fire on anyone they saw
in the streets, injuring two Palestinian boys critically.
Two
15-year-old teenage boys were hit by Israeli machine-gun fire Friday
morning, hospital and security sources said, as Israeli armored
vehicles stormed the rubble-reduced Jenin refugee camp, Agence
France-Presse (AFP) reported.
The
two boys, listed in serious condition, were outside their homes doing
nothing when Israeli soldiers in an armored vehicle opened fire, said
AFP.
Israeli
forces were shooting at anyone they saw on the streets as they carried
out house-to-house searches, while the Israeli army enforced a curfew,
security sources told the French news agency.
It
was the biggest military offensive since the army stormed the
West Bank
city of
Nablus
, the occupation army said.
It
was also the largest offensive on Jenin since the April 2002 massacre
of hundreds of Palestinians in Jenin during the Israeli army's
six-week invasion of the
West Bank
.
The
notorious April offensive ended with the Jenin refugee camp flattened
and hundreds of Palestinians killed.
At
least 40 tanks, jeeps and armored vehicles rumbled into Jenin and its
refugee
camp
Friday
in a raid dubbed "Operation Vanguard."
"We
intend to cover the entire city, imposing a curfew, conducting
searches and setting up stakeouts," an Israeli officer told
reporters outside Jenin.
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It was also the largest offensive on Jenin since the notorious April 2002 massacre |
"Out
of some 250,000 people in the Jenin area, we are looking for a cell of
no more than 20," he added in reference to twenty Palestinian
resistance activists
Israel
wants allegedly in connection with a retaliatory attack that killed 14
Israelis earlier in the week.
The
officer called the latest offensive on Jenin "an outgrowth of
this week's suicide car bombing" in northern
Israel
that was claimed by the resistance group Islamic Jihad.
There
was a brief pre-dawn gunfight between soldiers and Palestinian
fighters at the start of the offensive, but since then the town had
fallen quiet, security sources said.
Israeli
occupation forces began firing machine guns as they moved into the
area.
It
was not initially clear if anyone was abducted in the offensive.
