Palestinian medics said a man died early Saturday, two weeks after he was critically wounded by gunfire during clashes as troops worked to demolish the homes of two gunmen who killed a military officer last year.
Yazan al-Jaabari, 19, died from wounds he sustained on January 2, the Ibn Sina hospital in the southern town of Jenin said in a statement.
Two Palestinian gunmen were also killed during the firefight.
The Israel Defense Forces said at the time that during the operation in Kafr Dan, north of Jenin, troops came under “massive gunfire” by Palestinian gunmen.
Others hurled explosives, stones, and Molotov cocktails at the Israeli forces, and set fire to tires, the IDF said.
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“Troops responded with riot dispersal means and fired at a number of armed men who fired at them,” the IDF said, adding that “suspects were hit.”
The village is the hometown of two Palestinian gunmen who carried out a deadly attack along the West Bank security barrier on September 14, killing Maj. Bar Falah, 30, the deputy commander of the elite Nahal reconnaissance unit.
Maj. Bar Falah, 30, the deputy commander of the elite Nahal reconnaissance unit, who was killed in a firefight with two terrorists near the West Bank security fence on September 14, 2022. (Courtesy: Family)
In a statement, the IDF said troops had entered Kafr Dan to demolish the homes of Ahmed Abed and Abdul Rahman Abed, who were both killed in a gun battle during the attack in September.
Ahmed Abed was an officer in the Palestinian Authority security services.
No soldiers were hurt during the incidents, the military said.
Israel regularly demolishes the homes of Palestinians accused of carrying out deadly attacks, as a matter of policy. The efficacy of the measure has been hotly debated even within the Israeli security establishment, while human rights activists denounce the practice as unjust collective punishment.
A military investigation into the death of Falah pointed to “errors” made by troops, who detected the suspects near a military post and moved in to investigate but failed to realize they were armed and were caught unawares by their initial volley of fire, which hit Falah.
The incidents came during an Israeli anti-terror offensive, mostly focused on the northern West Bank to deal with a series of Palestinian attacks that killed 31 people in 2022.
The IDF’s operation has netted more than 2,500 arrests in near-nightly raids. It also left more than 170 Palestinians dead in 2022, and another ten since the beginning of the year, many of them while carrying out attacks or during clashes with security forces, though some were uninvolved civilians.
