3 Palestinian assailants killed by security forces during West Bank clashes

Security forces killed one Palestinian assailant and two rioters as three violent clashes with IDF soldiers broke out in the West Bank.

By YAAKOV LAPPIN, BEN HARTMAN, KHALED ABU TOAMEH
Updated: NOVEMBER 26, 2015 22:52
Scene of attempted stabbing attack in Tapuah Junction
Security forces killed one Palestinian assailant and two rioters as three violent clashes with IDF soldiers broke out in the West Bank on Thursday.
Samer Hassan Sarisi, 51, from Jenin, arrived at the Tapuach junction in the Samaria region of the West Bank at 10:30 a.m. in a taxi, a Border Police spokesman said. The terrorist jumped out with a knife in hand and ran toward a Border Police post at the junction, the spokesman said. The officers opened fire, killing the assailant. No other injuries were reported in the incident.
Palestinian medics claimed that the IDF prevented them from approaching Sarisi after he was shot.
The Tapuah junction in the upper West Bank has been the site of repeated attacks in the current wave of terror, as well as many other terror attacks in recent years.
In the evening, Palestinian medics reported that IDF soldiers shot and killed Khaled Mahmou Jawabra, 19, in the Aroub refugee camp south of Hebron. He was rushed to the Al-Ahli Hospital, where he was pronounced dead 30 minutes later. The IDF said they spotted a Palestinian man with a firebomb in his hand on the side of Route 60. Soldiers shot him when they believed he was about to throw it at Israeli cars on the road.
South of Ramallah in the morning, Yehya Yusri Taha, 21, was killed while throwing a firebomb at soldiers during a security raid on the West Bank village of Katanna in the morning, the IDF said.
Soldiers had conducted a search around a suspected home, when a clash broke out involving several rioters, who threw large rocks and firebombs at soldiers, an army spokeswoman added. Soldiers first responded with non-lethal crowd control means, but when they spotted a man hurling firebombs that they felt put their lives in danger, they directed live fire at the suspect, striking and killing him, according to the spokeswoman.
Villagers said that Taha died after being hit in the head with a bullet. He was later buried in his village.
During the raid, soldiers arrested five suspects and seized ammunition, knives, binoculars, and IDF uniforms and equipment.
The army said the village has become a central launch point for terrorists who have carried out attacks within Israel and the West Bank, including the murder of Cpl. Ziv Mizrahi, who was stabbed to death at a gas station on Route 443 on Monday.
Separately, during an arms raid in the Palestinian village of a-Zawiya, southeast of Kalkilya, soldiers from the Kfir infantry brigade’s Duchifat battalion seized an M-16 assault rifle.
In West Bank raids overnight between Wednesday and Thursday, the army arrested a total of 20 security suspects, 13 of whom allegedly took part in unorganized terrorism and violent disturbances.
Arrests occurred in the village of Rai, southwest of Jenin, Jalkamus, west of Jenin, where a Hamas member was arrested, and in the city of Kalkilya, where the IDF arrested three security suspects.
Other arrests occurred near Nablus, Ramallah, and Beitunya, as well as in villages near Bethlehem; the army arrested four suspects in Hebron overnight, two of them Hamas operatives.
According to Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs figures, Palestinian terrorists have murdered 22 people throughout the country from September 13 to November 25, and wounded more than 200, 21 of them seriously.
On the other side, 102 Palestinians were killed while carrying out terrorist assaults or clashing with police and troops. Many of those killed have been teenagers. The Palestinian Authority Health Ministry said that 18 of those Palestinians killed were in the Gaza Strip, the others were from east Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Negev, and at least 12,000 Palestinians have been wounded since the beginning of the violence, the ministry said, mostly in clashes with the IDF, where many sustained light injuries including tear gas inhalation.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas blames Israel for the violence. “Disappointment, despair and loss of hope in the future led our youth to reactions like those we are witnessing,” Abbas told reporters. “The current Israeli government has failed every chance to make peace, and destroyed the foundations of the political, security and economic agreements, which makes us unable to implement, alone, signed bilateral agreements,” he said.
Israel in turn has castigated Palestinians for incitement, particularly over the Temple Mount.
Tovah Lazaroff and Reuters contributed to this report.