Seven Palestinians, including a doctor, have been killed by Israeli forces during an operation in Jenin in the north of the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry has said.
Dr Oussaid Jabareen, a 50-year-old surgeon at Jenin Government Hospital, was shot dead on his way to work, according to the ministry. Palestinian media also said a teenage boy was killed while riding a bicycle.
The Israeli military said its troops exchanged fire with Palestinian gunmen during a counter-terrorism operation in Jenin and that it was reviewing allegations that “uninvolved individuals” were hit.
There has been a surge in violence in the West Bank since the start of the war in the Gaza Strip, triggered by Hamas’s deadly attack on southern Israel on 7 October.
The UN says at least 480 Palestinians – members of armed groups, attackers and civilians – have been killed in conflict-related incidents in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
Ten Israelis, including six security forces personnel, have also been killed in the West Bank.The West Bank-based Palestinian health ministry said seven people had been killed and nine wounded, two of them seriously, by Israeli fire during Tuesday morning’s operation in Jenin.
The only casualty it named was Dr Jabareen, whom it said Israeli forces had shot as he travelled to work at Jenin Government Hospital, where he was a surgeon.
The ministry accused Israeli forces of deliberately killing the doctor. Official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that a schoolboy in the ninth grade, Mahmoud Hamadna, was killed as he cycled through Jenin.
It posted a photograph on X, formerly Twitter, purportedly showing the teenager’s body lying on the ground in a side-street beside what looked like a bicycle.
Wafa also said schoolteacher Allam Jaradat was killed “while on duty” at Walid Abu Muwais Basic School and posted a photo that it said showed a pool of blood on the back seat of his car.
Photographs from Jaradat’s funeral showed mourners carrying a body wrapped in a Hamas flag.
Video footage meanwhile showed people helping a Palestinian photojournalist, Amr Mansara, who told AFP news agency that he had been “hit in the back of my leg by a stray bullet fired by Israeli forces”.
Later, an AFP correspondent reported seeing at least five gunmen exchanging fire with Israeli troops in downtown Jenin, and that Israeli armoured bulldozers had dug up the surface of the road between the government hospital and Jenin’s refugee camp.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement that security forces began an operation in Jenin on Tuesday morning in response to intelligence about activity by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad gunmen.
“As part of the counterterrorism activity and activities against terrorist infrastructure, extensive exchanges of fire are under way between the security forces and the armed terrorists. Hits to terrorists were identified. No IDF injuries were reported.
“During the exchanges of fire in the area, uninvolved individuals were reportedly hit. The IDF is reviewing the allegations,” it added.
Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) – which, like Hamas, is proscribed as a terrorist organisation by Israel, the UK and other countries – said it was battling Israeli forces in Jenin and had targeted some with an explosive device.
Hamas condemned what it called “a new massacre in Jenin”.
A spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, a rival of Hamas who is based in the West Bank, accused Israeli forces of “violating sanctities, killing innocent people and doctors and destroying the infrastructure of Palestinian hospitals, cities, villages and camps in full view of the world”.
On Friday night, the IDF said it had carried out a rare air strike in West Bank and killed a key figure in one of Jenin’s armed groups.
The IDF said Islam Khamayseh was a “senior terrorist operative” who had been involved in a series of attacks, including a 2023 drive-by shooting that killed an Israeli man near the settlement of Hermesh. PIJ said Khamayseh was one of its members and that his killing would “not go unpunished”.
Source: BBC
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