By Armed clashes on Monday between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants in and around the city of Jenin in the occupied West Bank left at least four Palestinians dead, including a 15-year-old boy, and dozens more wounded, according to Palestinian health officials.
Seven Israeli security force members were also wounded, the military said.
The battle in and around Jenin, long a center of Palestinian militancy, was unusually intense, according to Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, a spokesman for the Israeli military. That prompted the Israeli forces to deploy a helicopter gunship in support of ground troops battling the militants, he added.
At least one powerful explosive device laid by Palestinian militants disabled several of the Israeli military’s advanced armored vehicles in a village near Jenin at around 7 a.m. on Monday morning, complicating what had started out as an arrest raid, the military said.
The Israeli forces then called in at least one Apache helicopter that fired toward Palestinian gunmen to try to clear the area as additional forces worked to extricate the damaged vehicles from the area under fire, the military said. Experts said that was probably the first such use of a helicopter gunship in the occupied West Bank since the second Palestinian uprising about 20 years ago.
Colonel Hecht said that the helicopter had fired at open areas to keep the Palestinian gunmen at a distance and that the army’s evacuation efforts were continuing amid exchanges of fire more than five hours after the vehicles were hit.
