2 Palestinians arrested in IDF raid in Jenin

After a brief firefight, two Palestinian terror suspects were arrested Sunday after the IDF surrounded a house in the West Bank city of Jenin.

The army said it seized one M-16 found in the house, and explosive materials.

The arrest operation by the IDF’s Duvdevan unit ended without injuries on either side, the army said.

However, Israeli media reported four Palestinians were wounded, and two others suffered from shortness of breath after inhaling tear gas.

The Palestinian Ma’an news agency reported 27 people were injured by rubber bullets and tear gas inhalation, and three people were detained in the operation.

According to Palestinian reports quoted by Israel Radio, the army did not arrest the Hamas fugitive whose house soldiers had surrounded. The operative was named as Kays a-Sa’adi.

The army said that during the operation, the military had believed an armed suspect had holed himself up in the house. “As a result of the actions taken in this framework, a fire broke out in the structure,” the army said in a statement, without specifying. The fire was extinguished a short while later.

The IDF said there were “reports of shooting” at the scene of the arrest, and “explosives were hurled at the troops.”

Arabic media reports said the army shot an anti-tank missile at the house, igniting the fire.

The arrests came amid an uptick in violence in the West Bank and Jerusalem. On Saturday night, two Jewish men — Nehemia Lavi, 41, and Aharon Bennett, 22 — were stabbed to death in Jerusalem’s Old City and a woman and baby were injured. In a separate incident, a 15-year-old Israeli teenager was moderately injured in a stabbing near the Old City. The attacks came two days after Eitam and Naama Henkin were gunned down in a West Bank drive-by shooting. The couple’s four children, who were in the backseat of the car, were not hurt in the deadly terror attack.

Judah Ari Gross contributed to this report.