Palestinian Ministry: Six Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank

Four people aged between 20 and 25 were killed and a 14-year-old was wounded in Tulkarem by Israeli army fire, the ministry said.

The Israeli military said the dead were terrorists, accusing them of plotting attacks against Israelis.

The Palestinian ministry condemned the “murders committed by Israeli occupation forces” in the city, located in the northwest of the West Bank, which Israel occupied in 1967.

The ministry initially reported three deaths. Witnesses in Tulkarem told AFP that three gunmen were killed when their car was intercepted by Israeli secret agents.

Agents “shot at them on a street in the northern part of the city and three men died,” said one witness, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Pictures on social media, which AFP could not independently verify, showed armed soldiers in military uniform surrounding the impounded car.

The Israeli military said “four terrorists from a terrorist network” who were suspected of carrying out dozens of shooting attacks in the area were killed in Tulkarem.

Since the start of the war between Israel and the Islamist group Hamas in the Gaza Strip, outbreaks of violence have become more frequent in the West Bank as well.

An 18-year-old Palestinian was killed by an Israeli army shot to the head in Beit Fajr, located in the west of the territory, the ministry said.

Earlier, the Palestinian Ministry of Health reported that Israeli forces killed a young man and seriously wounded three others in Chalchuli, in the southern West Bank.

The Israeli military has not yet commented on the incidents in Beit Fajar and Chalchuli.

According to the ministry, more than 150 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli forces or by settler attacks since October 7, when the war between Israel and Hamas began.

On Sunday, United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas during a surprise visit to the West Bank, where the two leaders discussed the need to end extremist violence against Palestinians, the State Department said.