The Israeli military said it killed five more militants, including a local commander, early Thursday in the West Bank as it pressed ahead with what appeared to be the deadliest military operation in the occupied territory since the start of the war in Gaza.
Israel says the simultaneous raids across the northern West Bank — which have killed a total of 16 people, nearly all militants, since late Tuesday — are aimed at preventing attacks. The Palestinians see them as a widening of the Israel-Hamas war aimed at perpetuating Israel’s decades-long military rule over the territory.
The Islamic Jihad militant group confirmed that Mohammed Jaber, known as Abu Shujaa, was killed during a raid in the city of Tulkarem. He was a commander for the group in the Nur Shams refugee camp on the outskirts of Tulkarem. He became a hero for many Palestinians earlier in the year when he was reported killed in an Israeli operation, only to make a surprise appearance at the funeral of other militants, where he was hoisted onto the shoulders of a cheering crowd.
The military said he was killed along with four other militants in a shootout with Israeli forces early Thursday after the five had hidden inside a mosque. It said Abu Shujaa was linked to numerous attacks on Israelis, including a deadly shooting in June.
Israel launched a large-scale operation in the West Bank overnight into Wednesday. Hamas said 10 of its fighters were killed in different locations, and the Palestinian Health Ministry reported an 11th death, without saying whether he was a fighter or a civilian.
The overall toll of 16 killed in less than two days would make it the deadliest Israeli operation in the West Bank since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack out of Gaza ignited the war there.
At least 650 Palestinians in the West Bank have been killed by Israeli fire in the last 10 months, according to Palestinian officials. Most have died during near-nightly raids by Israeli forces. Israel says the operations are required to dismantle Hamas and other militant groups and to prevent attacks on Israelis, which have also risen since the start of the war, while Palestinians in the West Bank fear the raids show Israel’s intention to broaden the war and forcibly displace them.
WATCH | Israeli forces launch Wednesday’s military operation in the West Bank:
Israel launched a large-scale expansion of its military efforts into the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, calling it a counter-terrorism operation. Palestinians are accusing the Israeli army of expanding the tactics it has been using in Gaza.
UN calls for halt to military operation
Antonio Guterres, the UN’s secretary general, called on Israel to halt its military operation in the West Bank and comply with its obligations under international law to take measures to protect civilians, according to a written statement from his spokesperson Stephane Dujarric on Thursday.
“These dangerous developments are fuelling an already explosive situation in the occupied West Bank and further undermining the Palestinian Authority,” the statement said.
Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesperson for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, condemned the raids on Wednesday as a “serious escalation.”
The United Nations says Israel’s use of airstrikes and other military means in the West Bank operation resulted in casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure.
The statement also called for injured people to be granted access to medical care and for humanitarian workers to be able to distribute aid to those in need. During Wednesday’s operation, the Palestinian Health Ministry in the West Bank said Israeli forces had blocked the roads leading to a hospital with dirt barriers and surrounded other medical facilities in Jenin.
The Israeli military said another militant was arrested in the operation in Tulkarem, and that a member of Israel’s paramilitary Border Police was lightly wounded.
Nur Shams is among several large refugee camps across the Middle East that date back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation, in which around 700,000 Palestinians fled or were driven out of their homes in what is now Israel. Israel says many of the camps are now strongholds for Palestinian militants.
Israel captured the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war, and the Palestinians want all three territories for their future state.
The three million Palestinians in the West Bank live under seemingly open-ended Israeli military rule, with the Western-backed Palestinian Authority administering towns and cities. Over 500,000 Jewish settlers, who have Israeli citizenship, live in well over 100 settlements across the occupied Palestinian territory, settlements that most of the international community, including Canada, considers illegal. Settler violence toward Palestinians in the West Bank has risen sharply since the start of the war.
The war in Gaza erupted after Hamas-led militants attacked Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250.
Israel responded with an overwhelming offensive that has killed over 40,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, displaced around 90 per cent of Gaza’s population, and caused vast destruction.
The United States, Qatar and Egypt have spent months trying to mediate a ceasefire that would see the remaining 108 hostages released.
