3 Fatah activists slain in Israeli raid in West Bank; 3 Palestinians killed in Gaza strike

3 Fatah activists killed in Israeli raid

NABLUS, West Bank — Israeli soldiers stormed homes in the West Bank on Saturday, killing three Palestinians allegedly involved in the fatal shooting of an Israeli and testing an uneasy security arrangement with Palestinian authorities.

The predawn operations in Nablus targeted activists of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement. Abbas aides accused Israel of undermining U.S.-backed peace efforts.

Also Saturday, an Israeli air strike killed three Palestinians in Gaza, near Israel’s border barrier

Relatives who witnessed the Nablus shootings said soldiers fired at two of the men without warning. An Israeli army spokesman, Maj. Peter Lerner, said troops fired after the three men failed to respond to calls to surrender.

The West Bank has been relatively calm in the past two years, as Abbas’ security forces began exerting control over former militant strongholds, such as Nablus, and renewed some coordination with Israeli troops.

Abbas and Israel have a shared foe, Hamas, which wrested the Gaza Strip from Abbas in a 2007 takeover. However, Abbas has frequently complained that continued Israeli army raids into Palestinian-controlled areas of the West Bank undermine his authority.

This week’s sudden spike in violence could undercut the security coordination.

On Thursday, Palestinian gunmen shot and killed an Israeli settler, a father of seven, as he drove in the northern West Bank. The Israeli military on Saturday identified suspects in the shooting as 36-year-old Anan Subeh, 40-year-old Ghassan Abu Sharah and 40-year-old Raed Suragji, all members of Fatah’s militant offshoot, the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades. The group carried out many roadside shootings during the second Palestinian uprising, which erupted in 2000.

Before dawn Saturday, dozens of Israeli troops entered Nablus’ old city to try to arrest those responsible for the killing, the military said.

Soldiers used explosives to blow open the door of the Abu Sharah family’s three-story apartment building, said Ghassan Abu Sharah’s brother, Jihad. Jihad said he rushed downstairs and was ordered by the soldiers to summon Ghassan. Jihad said that when Ghassan came downstairs, one of the soldiers opened fire and killed him.

Troops also used explosives to gain entry to the home of Raed Suragji, said his wife, Tehani.

She said her husband opened the door of the bedroom,.

“Suddenly, shots were fired at us,” she said. “He fell down. I started shouting. I held his head in my lap and sat on the ground.”

Tehani Suragji was injured by shrapnel in the leg.

Lerner, the army major, said Suragji used his wife as a human shield. He said the suspects had refused to surrender and that soldiers “had to operate under the assumption that they are dangerous.”

In the third raid, troops surrounded the family home of Anan Subeh and ordered everyone to come out, said Subeh’s brother, Jamal. The family evacuated, but Anan Subeh stayed with a pistol and a rifle, according to his brother.

The army initially said soldiers exchanged fire with the wanted man, but Lerner said Subeh did not use his weapons. Troops found two pistols and two assault rifles in his possession.

Subeh had been accepted in Israel’s amnesty program for Fatah gunmen, according to Nablus’ deputy governor, Anan Attireh. Most Fatah gunmen are dead, in prison or retired, but those who remain active threatened revenge. “We will not stand idly by while our fighters are slaughtered,” said a group spokesman who identified himself as Abu Mahmoud.

Lerner said the raid had not been coordinated with Abbas’ security forces who have also tried to find those responsible for the killing of the Israeli man.

In Nablus, thousands joined the funeral procession for the three men later Saturday.

“Why the coordination while we are under the bullets of the army?” chanted the angry crowd, referring to the ties between Abbas’ security forces and the Israeli military.

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, a Western-backed moderate, responded angrily to the raids.

“The Israeli escalation … is a clear attempt to flee from its obligations: halting Israeli military incursions in the Palestinian territories (and) halting settlement building,” Fayyad said in a statement.

Meanwhile, an air strike killed three Palestinians close to Israel’s northern border with Gaza.

The army said the three were hit after they ignored warning shots while approaching an Israeli passenger crossing.

Israel does not allow Palestinians to approach its border area with Gaza, fearing militants will use the area to stage attacks. However, farmers and Palestinians searching for scrap metal also frequent the area.

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Additional reporting by Diaa Hadid in Gaza City.