Palestinian resistance fighters engaged in intense clashes with Israeli troops in the occupied West Bank city of Tulkarem on 9 January, which erupted when the army stormed the city at midnight on Monday after the assassination of three resistance fighters.
The clashes occurred near the occupied city’s Nour Shams and Tulkarem camps. Resistance fighters prevented Israeli forces from fully entering either camp.
“[Our] strikes against the enemy forces continue,” the Tulkarem Brigade said in a statement on Tuesday morning.
Israeli troops killed three resistance fighters on Monday evening after the army stormed Tulkarem. Footage shows an Israeli jeep driving over the body of one of the assassinated fighters.
The Rapid Response Groups, affiliated with the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, condemned the “cowardly assassination” in a statement Monday night. The statement also condemned the assassination of top Hezbollah commander Wissam al-Tawil in south Lebanon on 8 January.
“We announce the start of an expanded operation for all brigades and groups from now until further notice,” the statement says.
Several groups, including the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade and the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigade, took part in confronting the Israeli raid.
Throughout the incursion, Israeli bulldozers ravaged the city, causing significant damage to vital infrastructure.
Earlier on Monday, fighters of Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades’ Rapid Response Groups targeted two buses carrying Israeli settlers near the Enab settlement in the West Bank.
The operation was claimed as a response to the killing of top Hamas commander Saleh al-Arouri in Beirut on 2 January.
“This operation is a preliminary response to the cowardly assassination … of Saleh al-Arouri … and a response to the assassination of the martyrs in the city of Tulkarem.”
“We confirm that the sectarian strife you planted in the minds of the Palestinian people and the sectarian divisions you encouraged among the sons of our [Islamic] nation have fallen beneath the feet of our martyrs and heroes.”
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