An Israeli air strike rocked the Tulkarm camp in the northern West Bank on Thursday night, killing 18 people, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, while the Israeli army confirmed that it targeted “a leader in the armed wing of the Hamas movement.”
The Israeli army said in a statement that the Air Force killed “the leader of the Hamas terrorist network in Tulkarm” in a strike. He stated that he identified himself as Zahi Yasser Abdul Razzaq Awfi.
while The Palestinian News Agency “Wafa” reportedThe Israeli raid targeted a popular café in the camp, which led to “the killing of a family in a neighboring house, children, and the elderly in the neighborhood.”
Palestinian presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina condemned what he described as “the escalating Israeli massacres against our people in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank,” calling for “urgent international action to stop them.”
The People’s Committee responsible for running the camp told Agence France-Presse that an F-16 fighter jet bombed a building in the center of the camp.
Committee Chairman Faisal Salama said: “For the first time in years, Israel is bombing the West Bank with warplanes,” expressing his fear that the death toll will “rise even more.”
The use of a warplane there is “very unusual,” as Israel usually uses drones in attacks in the West Bank, according to the newspaper.New York Times” American.
Suleiman Zuhairi, a former Palestinian deputy minister who lives on the outskirts of Tulkarm, said Israel had not carried out such bombing in the West Bank “for years, if not decades.”
He added in statements to the New York Times: “The explosion was terrifying,” adding: “My house shook from the shock wave,” even though he was some distance from the site of the reported explosion.
The Ministry of Health announces an increase in the death toll from the Israeli strike on Tulkarm in the West Bank
The Palestinian Ministry of Health said Thursday that at least 16 Palestinians were killed in an Israeli strike on the Tulkarm refugee camp in the West Bank, according to what a Al-Hurra TV correspondent reported.
Zuhairi said, “With international attention directed toward Lebanon, and the war in Gaza continuing to attract less attention, Israel is working freely to escalate its campaign in the West Bank.”
A Palestinian security official confirmed to Agence France-Presse, “This bombing is the first of its kind since 2000 in the West Bank.”
For its part, the Israeli army statement explained that the raid targeted the leader of the “Hamas terrorist network in Tulkarm, Zahi Yasser Abdel Razzaq Awfi… and eliminated him.”
The army accused Oofi of “planning to carry out an imminent terrorist operation inside Israel.”
#urgent 🔻The IDF and Shin Bet eliminated the leader of the Hamas terrorist network in Tulkarm, who planned to carry out a terrorist operation inside Israel in the near future, in addition to liquidating other prominent leaders in the network.
🔻In a joint operation by the IDF and the Shin Bet, earlier today, warplanes attacked…
– Avichay Adraee (@AvichaiAdraee) October 3, 2024
According to the statement, “a number of other Hamas activists were killed in the attack.” The army said that Oofi “was behind the attempted terrorist attack in Ateret in the West Bank in September. He was planning to launch more similar attacks, while distributing weapons throughout the region.”
The Hamas movement, classified as a terrorist organization by the United States and other countries, was quick to condemn the bombing, which “caused a toll that was one of the highest that an Israeli air strike in the West Bank could take” since the outbreak of the second Palestinian intifada more than two decades ago.
“Difficult views”
For her part, Diala Hadayda, a volunteer paramedic at the Red Crescent Society, said: “We saw difficult scenes after the bombing, as the body parts of children and elderly people were scattered, and they flew onto the electricity wires, in addition to the presence of a number of citizens under the rubble.”
Local sources reported that civil defense and ambulance crews were working to extract a number of citizens from under the rubble.
The West Bank has witnessed an escalation in violence since the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, following an unprecedented attack by the Palestinian movement on October 7.
A statement talking about Hamas’ plans in the West Bank and Israel
The Israeli army said that a raid it carried out in Tulkarm on Thursday was aimed at eliminating the leader of a Hamas network who planned an imminent operation inside Israel.
Tulkarm was the focus of recent Israeli military raids in the West Bank, which destroyed infrastructure and businesses in the city, according to the American newspaper.
Since the outbreak of the war in Gaza, Israeli forces or settlers have killed at least 699 Palestinians in the West Bank, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
Israeli officials say that at least 24 Israelis, including members of the security forces, were killed in attacks launched by Palestinian militants during the same period.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, said last month that major Israeli operations in the West Bank sometimes occur “on a scale that we have not seen in the past two decades.”
Israeli forces regularly carry out incursions into Palestinian towns in the occupied West Bank, but current field developments as well as statements by Israeli officials indicate an escalation, according to Agence France-Presse.
Israel says that its military operations in the West Bank are aimed at “pursuing those wanted for terrorist crimes.”
