Middle East | Ten Palestinians died and more than 80 received gunshot wounds in the raid on the West Bank

of Israel security forces have killed ten Palestinians in a raid on the West Bank city of Nablus. In addition, 82 people were taken to the hospital due to gunshot wounds, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said, according to the news agency AFP.

The Israeli military said the purpose of the raid was to find “militants” and that their own forces came under fire during the raid. There were no casualties to Israeli security forces.

According to the army, they managed to “neutralize” the three suspects.

According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, the youngest person who died was 16 years old and the oldest was 72 years old.

One of the injured was a Palestinian journalist. He was shot in the hand, AFP says.

According to AFP, the armed Islamic Jihad group said one of their leaders was killed in the raid.

The local armed group Leijonanluola, on the other hand, said that six of the dead people belonged to various militant groups.

The Palestinian Authority described the events in Nablus as “mass murder”.

In January, ten Palestinians were also killed in a similar raid on the Jenin refugee camp on the West Bank.

of Israel security forces besieged the city of Nablus for three weeks last fall. The reason for the blockade was attacks on Israeli soldiers, which were suspected to be armed groups hiding in Nablus.

Since the beginning of the year, 59 Palestinian adults and children have died in the conflict. Some of them have been civilians, some have belonged to armed groups, AFP says.

The violence between Israel and the Palestinians escalated already last year, which was one of the bloodiest in the conflict’s 15 years.

At the end of last year, a right-wing government came to power in Israel, which includes both extreme nationalists and extreme religious figures.

The new government has provoked the situation in the region even more.