A 12-year-old Palestinian boy vomited in fear when Israeli troops stormed his family home in a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.
Othman Ghawanmeh described the terror when Israel's Defence Force (IDF) soldiers went on a rampage and arrested his brother Karim without charge. Othman told Middle East Eye that Israeli forces blew open the property in the Jalazone refugee camp, north of Ramallah, at dawn. The raid came despite an ongoing four-day truce between Israel and Hamas in the war-torn Gaza Strip.
The soldiers stormed the Ghawanmeh family home and demanded their father immediately hand his son over to the army. He refused but accompanied him to the detention centre. They then held the boy without charge and forced the father to return home without him.
Othman said: "We were in great shock. My mother started crying and screaming. When we woke Karim up, he immediately started vomiting out of fear. He is a young child, what could he be charged with? He still sleeps next to his toys. We are still in great shock."
Palestine TV also reported that IDF forces stormed the Jalazone refugee camp in Ramallah, apprehended a young man and conducted a separate operation in the Aqabat Jaber Camp. Violence in the West Bank has surged in the weeks since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, setting off a devastating war in the Gaza Strip. Israeli forces have killed dozens of Palestinians and arrested hundreds in the West Bank. Israeli forces shot dead five Palestinians in the city of Jenin late on Saturday and early Sunday, and killed three others elsewhere in the West Bank, the ministry said on Sunday. Six other Palestinians were injured in the Israeli raid in Jenin.
Palestinian news agency Wafa said Israeli forces stormed Jenin "from several directions, firing bullets and surrounding government hospitals and the headquarters of the Red Crescent Society." The Israeli military spokesperson’s office said it was looking into the reports. In its bid to pursue militants, Israel clamped down on the West Bank immediately after the Hamas assault, closing crossings and checkpoints between Palestinian towns. The intensified violence in the territory follows more than a year of escalating raids and arrests in the West Bank and deadly Palestinian attacks on Israelis.
Before the Hamas assault, 2023 was already the deadliest year for Palestinians in the West Bank in over two decades. Israel and Hamas have briefly halted fire to allow for more aid to enter Gaza and permit a hostage release in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. The Israeli offensive has killed more than 13,300 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza. Israel captured the West Bank, along with the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians seek those territories as part of their hoped-for independent state.