West Bank: 18 people reportedly killed in Israeli attack on Hamas figure | West Bank

At least 18 people have been killed in the occupied West Bank in an airstrike on a refugee camp in Tulkarm in which the Israeli military claims it killed a local Hamas leader.

Among the dead, according to Palestinian reports, was a family of four with two children named Mohammed Abu Zahra, his wife Sajaa and their two children Karam and Sham.

A spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas called the attack a “heinous crime” and a “massacre.”

“Eighteen martyrs following the bombing of the Tulkarm camp by the occupation,” the Palestinian Ministry of Health said on its Telegram account.

An activist in the area told AFP the Israeli attack “hit a cafeteria in a four-story building,” adding that there were “many casualties” at the hospital.

A brief statement said the Israeli army confirmed the attack in the northern West Bank and described it as a joint operation by the Shin Bet internal security service and the air force.

It was the first airstrike by an Israeli jet in the West Bank since the second intifada, which lasted from 2000 to 2005. Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967 and its forces regularly intervene in Palestinian communities, but also in the current attacks as comments from Israeli officials represent an escalation, residents said.

In parallel with the war in Gaza, which began after Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7, violence in the West Bank has increased. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 701 Palestinians in the West Bank. According to Israeli officials, at least 24 Israelis, including members of the security forces, were killed in attacks by Palestinian militants during the same period.

The Israeli military later said the attack killed a Hamas leader, Zahi Yaser Abd al-Razeq Oufi, and that other “activists” also active in Hamas were among the dead. It accused Oufi of being involved in numerous attacks in the West Bank and said he was in the process of planning another attack. Hamas condemned the airstrike, saying it would prove to be a “dangerous escalation.”

The Palestinian movement Fatah, a Hamas rival based in the occupied West Bank, has called for demonstrations on Friday to honor the “heroic martyrs” of Tulkarm. Tulkarm was one of the towns and Palestinian refugee camps targeted during a large-scale Israeli military operation against West Bank-based militants in late August.

United Nations human rights chief Volker Türk said last month that major Israeli operations in the West Bank sometimes took place “on a scale not seen in the last two decades.”