Israeli troops killed seven Palestinians — with Hamas claiming five as members — in a raid on Jenin in the occupied West Bank on Friday, officials said.
The Israeli military said the raid was carried out to find militants behind an attack last week in which an Israeli captain was killed. Hamas said one of the latest seven dead was a ‘commander’ in the group.
An Israeli military statement said there was a gun battle in the Jenin refugee camp and then troops surrounded a building in which ‘terrorists barricaded themselves’.
The Wafa official Palestinian news agency said military vehicles surrounded a house and demands were made by loudspeaker for one occupant to surrender.
Shoulder-launched missiles were fired and a drone used in the four-hour raid, it added.
According to the military, two militants who took part in a bomb attack in which the captain died were killed.
‘In addition, during the counterterrorism activity, an armed terrorist cell that was identified in the area was eliminated’ in an Israeli drone strike.
The Palestinian Authority health ministry said the seven dead were aged from 19 to 54.
A Hamas statement said five of the ‘martyrs’ were members of the group that rules the Gaza Strip. One, Ahmed Mahmud al-Aridi, 30, was named as a Hamas ‘commander’.
Mounting violence has gripped the West Bank since the start of the Gaza war on October 7.
Seven Palestinians were killed in military operations this week, before the latest deadly operation.
A woman and child died in an Israeli raid in a refugee camp near Tulkarem on Monday, four men in a drone attack on the same Nur Shams camp on Tuesday and one man in Jenin on Wednesday, according to the health ministry.
Fourteen people died in one two-day Israeli operation in Nur Shams in April, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent.
According to Palestinian figures, at least 568 Palestinians have died in the West Bank in military raids and violence with Israeli settlers since the Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7.
At least 16 Israelis, including soldiers, have been killed over the same period in the territory occupied by Israel since 1967, according to an AFP tally from official Israeli figures.
