Israeli forces martyr three Palestinians in Gaza

JERUSALEM: Israeli forces have martyred three Palestinians in separate incidents in the occupied Palestinian territory.

These Palestinians were martyred the occupied West Bank village of Burqin, in the Old City of Jerusalem, and in the Gaza Strip.

Mohammad Hlayel, spokesman for the Palestinian health ministry, confirmed the killing of three Palestinians.

Hamas spokesperson Abdulatif al-Qanou said that recent meetings between Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli officials “encouraged the occupation again to pursue the resistance”.

Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip after seizing it from the Palestinian Authority in 2007, praised those killed as “heroic martyrs”. It called on its supporters to “devise tactics and means that harm the enemy and drain it with all possible forms of resistance”.

Also on Sunday, Israel released Khalida Jarrar, a prominent Palestinian lawmaker, after nearly two years in prison. Jarrar, a senior figure in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, has been in and out of Israeli prisons for years – often without being charged.

The PFLP has an armed wing and is considered a terrorist group by Israel and western countries, but Jarrar has not been implicated in attacks.

She was sentenced to two years in prison in March for membership in a banned group but given credit for time already served. She was freed several weeks before her sentence was to end.