Eighteen Palestinians have been killed and at least 20 others injured by the Israel Defence Forces during an hours-long daytime raid on Jenin city and its refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.
In the latest escalation in violence on the West Bank, occurring against the background of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, the IDF said an airstrikehit an armed squad of men in the city.
Local sources named one of the dead as Ayham al-Amer, an officer in the Palestinian security services.
The ministry of health in Ramallah said two other Palestinians were killed on Wednesday night in separate incidents in Beit Fajjar, south of Bethlehem, and in Dura, south of Hebron.
Israel’s military said it was conducting counter-terrorism raids in Jenin and gave no further details.
According to Palestinian health ministry figures, at least 178 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since the 7 October attack on Israel, in which Hamas gunmen from the Gaza Strip killed at least 1,400 people.
Sometimes deadly clashes have been taking place between the IDF and Palestinians in the West Bank as Israel has imposed widespread and often draconian closures on Palestinian cities and as extremist settlers have also launched attacks.
Graphic footage from the scene of the strike in Jenin showed the bodies of a number of men, some covered, lying on the ground while a paramedic performed cardiac massage on one of those hit. The raid, involving armoured vehicles and a least one bulldozer, continued after the airstrike.
Detailing what it said was the sequence of events, the IDF said it entered Jenin overnight on Wednesday, uncovering and destroying a number of improvised explosive devices. As the raid continued into daylight, a group fired on the Israeli troops, leading to an airstrike.
As the raid began, flyers were dropped on Jenin refugee camp saying: “The IDF’s activity inside the camp takes place due to terrorist activity that you support, the IDF will remain here and return time after time until terrorism is finally eradicated. Stay away from terrorism and live in peace. You have been warned.”
In Israel, meanwhile, police detained four prominent Arab-Israeli politicians, among them Mohammed Barakeh, the chair of the Higher Arab Monitoring Committee, a group comprising political and civil society leaders from the Israeli Arab community, over plans to organise a protest in Nazareth against the war in Gaza.
The police said Barakeh, a former Knesset member, had been questioned on suspicion of what they described as attempting “to organise a demonstration that is liable to lead to incitement and harm public peace, in violation of police directives”.
Police detained the former Balad party MPs Haneen Zoabi, Sami Abu Shehadeh and Mtanes Shehadeh as well as the party’s director general, Yousef Tatur.
The Higher Arab Monitoring Committee said it had planned to hold a protest at 11am in the centre of Nazareth attended by about 50 people and had informed the police the previous day.
On Wednesday, Israel’s high court had rejected a challenge to a police ban on protests in two towns whose populations are largely Israeli citizens of Palestinian origin.
“We were supposed to meet in Nazareth with one demand today,” Ahmed Tibi, a member of the Knesset, told the Guardian. “All nations are saying stop the war. Now the Arab-Israeli citizens of Israel are forbidden from demanding we stop the war. We are talking about members of parliament, ex-members of parliament and leadership of the parties. The arrests today are a symptom of what is going on.”
