Israeli strike kills five Palestinians in West Bank, health ministry says

The Palestinian Red Crescent said a drone targeted a group of five young men near a mosque in the city of Tubas at dawn on Wednesday, and an ambulance crew transferred the bodies to the local government hospital.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said an aircraft struck an “armed terrorist cell” during counter-terrorism activity by security forces in Tubas and the nearby town of Tamun.

An Israeli military official said later that a curfew had been declared in Tubas as part of the operation.

The government hospital has been surrounded and people can exit and enter only subject to being checked by forces, according to the official.

Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that Israeli forces were carrying out large-scale raids on the city’s outskirts and several neighbourhoods.

Wafa also said an Israeli military operation was continuing in the city of Tulkarm and its refugee camps for a second day.

On Tuesday, the Palestinian health ministry said a Palestinian man and woman were killed by gunfire from Israeli forces in Tulkarm. The IDF did not comment on the incident.

It comes days after the largest Israeli operation in the West Bank since Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October and the ensuing war in Gaza.

The health ministry said at least 36 Palestinians were killed during the nine-day operation in the Tubas, Tulkarm and Jenin areas. Most of the dead were claimed by armed groups as members, but the ministry said children were also among those killed.

An Israeli soldier was also killed during the fighting in Jenin.

Also on Wednesday, Israeli paramedics said an Israeli man was in a critical condition following a ramming attack by a lorry near the Jewish settlement of Givat Assaf.

The IDF said the attacker was "neutralised" at the scene.

Israeli media identified the lorry driver as a Palestinian man from Rafat, near Ramallah.

On Sunday, three Israeli security guards were shot dead by a Jordanian lorry driver at the Allenby Bridge border crossing between Jordan and the West Bank.

There has been a spike in violence in the West Bank since last October.

More than 690 Palestinians have been killed, the Palestinian health ministry says, as Israeli forces have intensified their nearly daily search and arrest raids.

Israel says it is trying to stem Palestinian attacks on Israelis in the West Bank and Israel, in which 28 Israelis had been killed as of 2 September, according to the UN.

-BBC