BICOM

Israeli forces shut down two illegal workshops in Palestinian areas of the West Bank which it says were being used to manufacture weapons and firearms.

In one operation on Tuesday night, the IDF’s Menashe Brigade and Border Police officers shut a building in the Palestinian city of Jenin suspected producing illegally manufactured guns. One man was arrested.

A second operation took place in Yatta, near Hebron in the southern West Bank, where the owner of a workshop and two others were arrested and questioned. During additional searches in Yatta, the IDF found “a homemade gun with compatible bullets, a suitcase full of 15 knives and bullets”.

The IDF says that it has dismantled 37 illegal weapon manufacturing workshops and seized more than 370 firearms in the West Bank since the beginning of 2016. The vast majority of attacks since October 2016 have been carried out by lone Palestinians but shooting attacks have increased in the last 6 months.

This morning, a Palestinian man was shot and wounded after he attempted to stab a soldier at the Hawara checkpoint near the West Bank city of Nablus. The assailant was shot by soldiers and given medical treatment at the scene.

In another incident in the West Bank, Israeli soldiers escorted hundreds of Jewish worshippers from Joseph’s Tomb in the Palestinian city of Nablus after they were attacked by rock-throwing locals. The monthly prayer session is carefully coordinated between Israeli and Palestinian security forces. Soldiers used non-lethal weapons in response to the attacks and there were no reports of injuries.