Having killed the entire leadership of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, hit 140 PIJ targets, including rocket launching sites, underground tunnels, and weapons warehouses, without suffering any major damage and with only three Israeli soldiers lightly wounded, the IDF continues without letup in its campaign to arrest or kill terrorists in the West Bank, especially in the cities of Jenin and Nablus. The latest raid resulted in three dead terrorists, including a long-sought leading member of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Ibrahim Nabulsi. A report on the latest successful Israeli raid is here: “Wanted terrorist among 3 said killed in IDF raid in Nablus, 40 injured,” by Emanuel Fabian, Times of Israel, August 9, 2022:
A wanted member of a terror cell who reportedly managed to evade previous attempts to capture him was one of three people killed during a fierce gun battle with Israeli troops in Nablus on Tuesday morning. A further 40 people were reported injured.
According to the Israel Defense Forces, soldiers surrounded the home of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades commander Ibrahim Nablusi, leading to an exchange of gunfire.
The IDF, Border Police, and Shin Bet security agency issued statements saying Nablusi had been killed there, along with another terrorist….
Nablusi was part of a squad that had committed several shooting attacks against soldiers and civilians in the West Bank earlier this year, according to the Shin Bet. The IDF said that included a shooting attack at the Joseph’s Tomb complex in the outskirts of Nablus.
In February, Israeli troops killed three members of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades cell in Nablus. While Nablusi was initially believed to have been killed during that operation, he was seen attending the funerals of his fellow cell members.
Palestinian media have since hailed Nablusi as a hero for repeatedly managing to evade Israeli arrest, although Israeli officials have said he was not always the target of arrest operations in Nablus….
The operation came less than 48 hours after Israel and PIJ reached a ceasefire following three days of armed conflict in and around the Gaza Strip.
On Monday, the terror group warned it may resume fighting unless Israel agrees to release two of its members.
The Egyptian-mediated deal, which went into effect at 11:30 p.m. Sunday, ended a three-day conflict that began Friday with Israeli strikes that killed a top PIJ commander. Palestinian terrorists subsequently fired around 1,100 rockets toward Israeli territory, while the Israel Defense Forces hit Islamic Jihad targets and killed another of the Iran-backed organization’s top leaders in Gaza.
The three days of conflict was sparked by the arrest by the IDF of the Islamic Jihad’s West Bank head Bassam Saadi in a raid on Jenin last week and the terror group’s subsequent threats to carry out terror attacks in retaliation.
Tensions have remained high in the West Bank, as Israeli security forces stepped up arrest raids and operations following a deadly wave of terror attacks against Israelis that left 19 people dead earlier this year.
In separate raids across the West Bank overnight, troops detained four wanted Palestinians, the IDF said Tuesday morning.
The campaign in Gaza may be over – for now – with the complete and devastating defeat of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which is now being blamed by the people of Gaza, who once could be counted on to remain supportive, for bringing yet more misery upon them, including the civilians killed by PIJ rockets that misfired. But the war on terrorism never ends, and in the last few months the IDF has been much more aggressive in going after terrorists in the West Bank, with constant raids even deep inside cities such as Jenin. Israel’s current leaders will constantly try to preempt attacks, as they did in arresting Bassam al-Sa’adi in Jenin, leader of the PIJ in the West Bank, and in killing the PIJ’s two top commanders in Gaza, Tayseer Jalabi and Khaled Mansour. In the West Bank, this latest IDF attack in Nablus is one more reminder that no part of the PA territories will be off limits to Israeli raids. After the killing of 19 Israelis earlier this year, the IDF and Shin Bet went relentlessly to work in the West Bank to kill and capture terrorists. And in this campaign, there will be no ceasefire and no letup.
