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Israel army destroys memorials to Palestinians on October 7 anniversary
Israel's military destroyed on Wednesday memorials across the West Bank to Palestinians accused of killing Israelis or who died in clashes, on the third anniversary of Hamas's October 7 attack, the army and local officials said.
The military took action across the occupied West Bank "to destroy monuments to terrorists", an army spokesperson told AFP, without explicitly connecting the move to the anniversary of Gaza-based Hamas's unprecedented attack on Israel.
Troops destroyed a stone monument and tore down commemorative posters in the northern region of Jenin, governorate spokeswoman Hala Abu Baker told AFP.
"A memorial to the martyr Yasser Hamdouni was destroyed in the town of Yaabad, and photos of various martyrs were removed from several locations in the city of Jenin," Abu Baker said.Hamdouni was accused of killing an Israeli settler in 2003, and died while serving a life sentence in 2016.
Palestinians refer to those killed by Israeli fire or in Israeli prisons as martyrs, with stone memorials or posters commemorating them a frequent sight in West Bank villages and towns.Israeli troops also raided the West Bank city of Nablus, "destroyed five memorials to martyrs in various parts of the city" and arrested scores of residents, deputy mayor Iyad Bakeer told AFP.
Israeli politicians have frequently denounced monuments, seeing them as glorifying attacks, but it is rare for the army to destroy them, especially in areas nominally under Palestinian Authority control.Separately, in Beit Duqqu, the army destroyed the home of a Palestinian man who was accused of killing an Israeli settler last month, the town's mayor and an AFP journalist reported.
Mayor Nazmi Mansour told AFP that "the Israeli army raided the town at 4:00 am and distributed leaflets saying it would demolish the home of detainee Qadri Samara".
An AFP journalist saw an Israeli military bulldozer clearing the rubble of a house after it was blown up amid a heavy deployment of Israeli forces in the town northwest of Jerusalem.
According to an AFP tally based on data from the Palestinian health ministry, Israeli forces or settlers have killed 1,113 Palestinians in the territory since the start of the Gaza war.Israeli figures show at least 49 Israelis, including civilians and security personnel, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during Israeli military operations during the same period.