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Six Palestinians killed in West Bank and Gaza

Six Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, medics say.

Four men were killed during a military raid in Jenin refugee camp late on Tuesday night. Three of them were claimed by militant groups as mem­bers.

Another young Palestin­ian man was killed during an Israeli raid in Jericho on Wednesday morning.

The sixth was killed during violent demonstrations on Tuesday evening near the Ga­za-Israel separation fence.

There was intense fight­ing on Tuesday night in the Jenin camp, a stronghold of Palestinian militants, where the Israeli military launched its biggest operation in years in the West Bank back in July.

In the morning, residents of the camp cleared up the dam­age to a house which had been surrounded by Israeli forces.

It was left pockmarked with bullet holes, and the floor was covered in broken glass and blood stains.

At one of the camp’s en­trances, Umm Omar showed the dried blood around her fingernails from one young militant she had dragged into her home during the night.

Raafat Khamaysi, 22, was injured in the exchange of fire with Israeli forces close to her house. She said he bled for two hours before he died.

The nearest hospital is less than 100m (328ft) away, but the fighting prevented an ambulance getting through in time.

Umm Omar was impassive as she told her story – such confrontations have become almost routine during her 40 years living in the camp.

Later, funeral processions filled the local streets, the green flags of the militant group, Hamas, mingling with the black flags of Islamic Jihad above the crowds of masked men.

Outside the house where 24-year-old Mahmoud al-Saa­di’s body was brought before burial, the sound of gunfire to honour his death met the wails of his family – militants and his mother each claiming him in their own way.

Saadi’s name and face will now join the army of those pasted on walls around the camp that commemorate the casualties – many of them aligned with militant groups – of previous deadly confron­tations there.

—BBC

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