Israeli forces raided the Aqabat Jaber refugee camp in Jericho in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, 1 March, the International Middle East Media Center reported.

Israeli soldiers surrounded and besieged a home before firing their weapons, wounding three and killing one of the occupants while arresting five more.

The Israeli army claimed it besieged and then invaded the refugee camp to search for Palestinians involved in the killing of an Israeli driver, Elan Ganeles, in a shooting attack two days prior, on 27 February.

The Palestinian Prisoners Society (PPS) said the detained Palestinians are all former political prisoners, including Abdul Nasser Mousa Shalloon, 55, Maher Shalloon, 44, Amer Shalloon, 39, Mohammad Shalloon, 47, and his son Saleh, 24, as well as Mahmoud Jamal Hassan Hamdan, 22, who was critically injured and later died of his wounds.

During the raid, Israeli forces sealed off the camp and prevented ambulances and journalists from entering it while using a man and his child as human shields, WAFA news agency reported.

The director of the ambulance service in Jericho told Al-Jazeera that Israeli forces prevented his staff from treating the injured during the military operation.

The Wednesday raid in Jericho coincided with efforts in Israel to pass legislation allowing for the execution of Palestinian detainees for alleged terror offenses. National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir campaigned on a promise to instate the death penalty and repeatedly threatened to send Palestinians “to the electric chair,” WAFA reported.

Meanwhile, on 24 February, UN experts expressed grave concern about efforts to reinstate the death penalty for persons defined as “terrorists.”

“The reinstatement of the death penalty is a deeply retrogressive step. More so when, on the face of it, the punishment will apply against minorities living within the State or those who live under the 55-year military occupation and rule,” the experts said.