ISRAELI occupation forces killed two Palestinian freedom fighters in the West Bank city of Nablus today.

The latest violence came days after Israel concluded a major two-day offensive against Palestinian resistance groups.

The ongoing violence raised questions about the effectiveness of the vicious Israeli attack earlier this week on the Jenin refugee camp, which saw the rare use of air strikes on resistance targets, the deployment of hundreds of troops and severe damage to many roads, homes and businesses. 

As a result of the attack, 12 Palestinians and one Israeli soldier were killed.

Israeli domestic security agency Shin Bet said today that the two men were killed in a gun battle with Israeli forces in the heart of Nablus, the West Bank’s commercial capital.

Shin Bet alleged that the pair had been behind a gun attack on a police vehicle this week.

The Palestinian Health Ministry identified the men as Khayri Mohammed Sari Shaheen and Hamza Moayed Mohammed Maqbool. 

Two resistance groups, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, claimed the men as members.

Palestinians carried their bodies into the hospital, chanting: “God is great!” as guns were fired into the air.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant praised today’s operation saying: “There will be no loop that isn’t closed and there won’t be a terrorist who doesn’t pay the heaviest price.”

Today’s killings were part of a year-long spiral of violence that shows no signs of abating, despite the brutal Israeli operation in the Jenin refugee camp this week. 

They follow the fatal shooting of Israeli soldier on Thursday by a Hamas fighter near an Israeli settlement in the West Bank.

The raid on the Jenin refugee camp was reminiscent of the second Palestinian uprising, a period of intense violence in the early 2000s that killed thousands of people. 

Israel has been staging brutal military raids in the West Bank for the past 16 months. 

On Thursday, a group of United Nations experts said the attack on Jenin, home to around 14,000 refugees, might constitute a “war crime.”

Over 150 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank this year and Palestinian retaliation has claimed at least 27 lives.

Tel Aviv claims that most of the Palestinians killed have been militants, but the victims have also included children protesting against the incursions and people not involved in any way.

Israel captured the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the six-day war of 1967. The Palestinians seek those territories for an independent state.