RAMALLAH (Reuters): An Israeli air strike killed five Palestinian fighters and wounded two other people in the occupied West Bank on Saturday, their faction, medics and Israel’s military said.
Palestinian media said the attack in Balata, near the northern city of Nablus, appeared to have been carried out by a warplane in what would mark an escalation of Israeli tactics in the West Bank. The military did not immediately confirm that.
The West Bank has seen a surge of violence in parallel to Israel’s six-week-old war against Hamas Islamists in the Gaza Strip, another territory where Palestinians seek statehood.
In a statement, the military said it struck “a number of terrorists (in Balata) … and prevented terror attacks against Israeli civilians.” The strike was carried out by one of its aircraft, it added, without specifying the type.
An armed wing of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party claimed the five dead as its fighters.
Three Palestinians were killed in an Israeli drone strike earlier on Friday in the city of Jenin in the occupied West Bank, the head of the Palestinian ambulance service said.
At least 186 West Bank Palestinians, including 51 children, have been killed by Israeli forces since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that triggered the Gaza war, according to UN figures. Another eight have been killed by Israeli settlers, while four Israelis have been killed by Palestinians, according to the figures.
“An armed terrorist cell that fired at Israeli security forces was struck by an Israel Defense Force aircraft. Additional terrorists who fired and hurled explosive devices at the security forces were neutralized,” the military said.
Hamas and the smaller militant group Islamic Jihad said they had engaged Israeli forces for several hours in the streets of Jenin, unleashing heavy fire and laying ambushes with explosives.
The military said that gunmen then fled in vehicles and ambulances toward Jenin’s Ibn Sina Hospital, and that troops stopped one of the vehicles at the entrance to the hospital.
It released video footage of them searching a car at the hospital and finding M-16 rifles and ammunition.
Palestinian health officials said some hospital workers were ordered to exit the hospital, with a verified video showing them walking out of the building, holding up their hands.
Separately, the military said Israeli soldiers had shot dead two gunmen who had opened fire at them from a car near the West Bank city of Hebron.
