Battles Erupt After Israeli Soldiers Follow Apparent GPS Error Into Palestinian Zone

JERUSALEM: Israeli forces mounted a rescue mission into a Palestinian village amid gun battles after two soldiers entered the area due to apparent error on a satellite navigation app, Israeli authorities said Tuesday.

The clashes late Monday in the Qalandiya refugee camp outside Jerusalem left at least one Palestinian dead and 10 injured, one seriously. At least 10 Israeli soldiers also were wounded during the hour-long operation.

According to initial Israeli reports, the two soldiers said they had been using Waze, a highly touted Israeli-invented navigation app bought two years ago by Google. The smartphone app, which has a settings option to "avoid dangerous areas," relies on crowd sourcing to give users the fastest traffic routes.

But in places where the app is not widely used - such as the Palestinian villages surrounding Jerusalem and in the West Bank - the service could face limitations.

Israeli army spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner said the two soldiers were from a non-combat unit and had been relying on a satellite navigation app that led them into the Palestinian refugee camp by mistake.

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It remained unclear how the soldiers could have stumbled into the middle of the camp, sandwiched between Jerusalem and Ramallah. To reach Qalandiya, the soldiers would have had to pass by the so-called separation barrier and through an Israeli checkpoint.

There, they were "stormed by a mob of people with rocks and Molotov cocktails," Lerner said. Their jeep was blocked from turning around and caught fire. The soldiers fled in separate directions.

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One of the soldiers had a mobile phone and within 30 minutes was located by several back up units of soldiers and Israeli police. The second soldier was found an hour later in the vicinity of an Israeli settlement.

While the search operation was underway, a firefight broke out with armed Palestinians in the camp.

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During the rescue operation, Lerner said that troops on the ground initiated the Hannibal protocol, allowing soldiers to raise the level of alert, increase the number of forces in the area and "carry out an extraction as fast as possible in order to end the incident."

The protocol has often been criticized as it allows for extraordinary military measures in order to prevent soldiers from being abducted.

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Palestinian sources reported that at least 10 Qalandiya residents were injured during the clashes and 22 year-old Iyad Omar Sajadiyya, a student at Al-Quds University, was killed.

The Washington Post's West Bank correspondent Sufian Taha, who witnessed the battle, described Qalandiya as a "war zone."

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"There was a lot traffic and you could hear the shooting like rain falling. Bullets were coming from every direction," he said. "Suddenly a large number of soldiers arrived and about 20 armored jeeps entered the camp."

In an interview on Israel Radio, a former military commander of the area, Gadi Shamni, said the Qalandiya refugee camp was a symbol of Palestinian resistance and that it had become a no man's land, where neither the Palestinian Authority nor the Israeli authorities were in control.

"This vacuum attracts violent gangs and a lot of armed people. There are incidents of shooting almost every evening in Qalandiya, certainly when the [Israeli military] enters," he said.

Tension between Israelis and Palestinians has been running high over the past five months, with almost daily stabbing, shooting and vehicular attacks by Palestinians against Israelis leaving at least 28 Israeli citizens dead and three foreign nationals.

Also, more than 180 Palestinians have been killed by Israelis, most while carrying out attacks against Israelis and the rest during clashes with the Israeli military.

© 2016 The Washington Post