Five killed as Israelis raid homes in occupied West Bank
Israel said its forces had hit Palestinian militants in Tamoun in the occupied West Bank yesterday while Hamas said its fighters were engaged in fierce clashes with Israeli forces in nearby Tubas city.
Violence in the West Bank has escalated since the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas broke out last October, with more Israeli raids, Jewish settler violence and Palestinian street attacks. Hamas has claimed more attacks there in recent days.
The official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported that one man was killed in the Israeli raid in Tubas, while four others were killed in an Israeli drone strike in Tamoun, a few kilometres further south.
It did not give their identities, but the Al-Qassam Brigades – the armed wing of the militant Palestinian group Hamas – later said one of its fighters, Fayyaz Fawaz Daraghmeh, was killed in the Tubas raid.
“Our fighters have been engaged for hours in fierce clashes with the invading occupation forces in Tubas,” it said.
The Israeli military said: “As part of counter-terrorism activity, an aircraft struck a number of armed terrorists in Tamoun.” It did not give a casualty figure.
The Palestinian Education Ministry named one of those killed in Tamoun as 17-year-old Mohammad Bani Odeh.
Reuters journalists at the scene of the Tubas raid saw a badly damaged house, with shattered glass and blood stains on the ground.
A boy said his family were sleeping in their home when Israeli special forces burst in and called out for his father.
“My father woke us up and he carried his weapon and there was an exchange of gunfire,” he said.
“Then they asked him to surrender, but my father said he will not surrender and he would rather be a martyr or run away. My mother and we (children) began to ask him to surrender but he refused.”
Israeli forces have killed at least 620 Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem – areas the Palestinians envisage as part of their own eventual state – since the start of the Gaza war, according to Palestinian health ministry figures.
Some have been armed fighters but others have been stone-throwing youths or uninvolved civilians.
At least 30 Israelis – civilians and soldiers – have been killed by Palestinians in Jerusalem and the West Bank in the same period.
WAFA also reported that President Mahmoud Abbas, whose Palestinian Authority has limited autonomy in the West Bank, will address the Turkish parliament in Ankara today.
The war in Gaza threatens to spill into a full-out regional conflict involving Iran and its proxies in the region, including Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen.
A new round of internationally mediated talks on a ceasefire and the release of Israeli hostages is still slated to go ahead today.