The Israeli Air Force carried out a strike against terrorists in Samaria on Wednesday, killing 10 of them, the IDF said the following day.
Another terrorist, Col. Kassem Aklik, a senior officer in the Palestinian Authority security forces and a member of the Fatah movement of P.A. chief Mahmoud Abbas, was killed by ground troops on Thursday, the army added.
Among those slain in the airstrike in the area of Tammun, a Palestinian town about 30 miles east of Netanya, were Omar Basharat and Muntzair Bani Oda, the IDF said.
The two men were allegedly responsible for setting off a bomb that killed IDF Sgt. Maj. Eviatar Ben Yehuda on Jan. 20 in the Tammun area. They had convened with other terrorists, at least some of whom were armed at the time of the strike, according to the IDF statement.
The strike is a “direct continuation of the intensive counter-terrorism activity of the Shin Bet and the IDF against terrorist infrastructures in the northern Samaria region,” read a statement by the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit.
Aklik was killed in Nablus, the army said. He had planned several attacks against Israelis, and had tried to escape when officers from the Border Police’s Yamam National Counter-Terrorism Unit approached a building where he was staying, the statement said. The officers shot and killed him. Aklik was carrying a pistol, according to the statement.
Aklik had planned to carry out attacks against Israelis, the report said.
Earlier this month, Israel launched “Operation Iron Wall” in Judea and Samaria, aiming to dismantle terrorist networks. So far, at least 29 terrorists have been killed in the operation and dozens more have been detained, according to the IDF.
“We have declared war on Palestinian terrorism in Judea and Samaria,” Defense Minister Israel Katz said during a visit Wednesday to a neighborhood of Jenin, which has been an early focus of the operation due to terrorist activities there. “Operation Iron Wall is intended to defeat the terrorist infrastructures, Iranian funding and armament,” he said.
For years before Oct. 7, 2023, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists invaded Israel, killed some 1,200 people and abducted another 251, Israel had largely refrained from carrying out airstrikes in Judea and Samaria, where most of the territory is governed fully or partially by the Palestinian Authority.
