They won’t say why, but the Israeli military invaded a West Bank refugee camp today, fairly quickly attacking a bunch of Palestinian protesters, in an incident that left 28 protesters shot, and one Israeli soldier wounded from being hit with a rock.
Officials refused to comment on the raid itself, but said they ordered the “rioters” to disperse and the military shot the main “instigators” when they continued to demonstrate. They also claimed the Palestinians were throwing explosives, though AFP reports who were present did not witness any such thing.
Palestinian sources say they believe the Israeli troops were there to arrest a member of the Fatah Party, but that he managed to escape. The camp is home to about 15,000 Palestinian refugees. After about three hours, the troops left, mostly through a nearby settlement.
Health officials say the troops were initially using rubber bullets, as would be in keeping with Israeli “crowd control” tactics, but very quickly switched to live ammunition. Despite 28 people being shot, none are believed to be mortally wounded.