Israeli strikes kill six in occupied West Bank
5 September 2024, 12:24
Palestinian health officials said strikes overnight killed six people including Mohammed Zubeidi, the son of a well-known militant commander.
Israeli strikes in the occupied West Bank killed six people, including the son of a prominent jailed militant, say Palestinian health officials.
Israel has been carrying out large-scale raids in the territory over the past week which it says are aimed at dismantling militant groups and preventing attacks.
The Palestinians fear a widening of the war in Gaza.
The strikes overnight in the northern West Bank town of Tubas killed six people, including Mohammed Zubeidi, the Palestinian Health Ministry said on Thursday.
His father, Zakaria Zubeidi, was a well-known militant commander during the second Palestinian uprising in the early 2000s and took part in a rare jail break in 2021 before being arrested and returned to prison days later.
The Israeli military said it conducted three airstrikes in Tubas on militants who threatened its soldiers.
Meanwhile, Palestinian health officials say an Israeli strike on a tent camp in Gaza killed four men and wounded two children.
The strike early on Thursday hit an encampment near the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central city of Deir al-Balah.
Hospital officials confirmed the toll and an Associated Press reporter saw the bodies.
The military said a fighter was killed in an airstrike in the built-up Al-Faraa refugee camp after allegedly hurling a firebomb at Israeli forces.
The Israeli military said it carried out a precise strike on a command and control centre operated by Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad militant group that was embedded in a humanitarian zone.
The nearly 11-month-long war has displaced about 90% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people, often multiple times.
Israel has ordered mass evacuations into so-called humanitarian zones but occasionally carries out strikes there as well.
A woman who identified herself as Umm Mohammed Wadi said she was staying in a tent close to where the strike occurred.
“What did they do to be struck while sleeping?” she said. “No hospital is safe, nor any school or home.”
Israel says it only targets militants and tries to avoid harming civilians.
The Gaza Health Ministry says at least 40,861 Palestinians have been killed and more than 94,000 wounded since the start of the war.
It does not differentiate between civilians and fighters in its toll.
The war began after Hamas launched a wide-scale attack into Israel on October 7, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250 people.
Around 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, about a third of whom are believed to be dead, after most of the rest were released during a ceasefire in November.
