Nine dead in two Israeli strikes in occupied West Bank

Photo: Jaafar Ashtiyeh Agence France-Presse People check a car that was reportedly hit by an Israeli strike in the village of Zeita near Tulkarm in the occupied West Bank on August 3, 2024.

Agence France-Presse

Published at 9:39 a.m.

• Middle East

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Two Israeli strikes in the occupied West Bank on Saturday killed a total of nine people, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported, with the Israeli military saying it targeted two “terrorist cells” as part of a counterterrorism operation in Tulkarem.

Five people were first killed in a drone strike, according to Wafa, with the Israeli military saying it targeted “five terrorists” who were preparing to carry out an attack.

The director of Thabet Thabet hospital in Tulkarm, on the western edge of the West Bank, reported that “five martyrs arrived at the hospital following an Israeli drone strike on a Palestinian vehicle near the village of Zeita.”

For his part, an Israeli army spokesman told AFP that “five terrorists […] about to carry out a terrorist attack” had been killed “in a vehicle.”

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“The army, the Shin Bet [internal security service] and the police are currently conducting an anti-terrorist operation in the Tulkarm region,” the spokesman added.

“I live less than 50 meters from here, we heard the sound of an explosion and saw a burning vehicle” on the road to Zeita, north of Tulkarem, “a witness at the site of the attack told AFP.”

“Next to it, we saw a body lying on the road. Inside the vehicle, there were three charred bodies,” added the man, Nasser, who declined to give his last name. The area was then sealed off by the Israeli army, according to Wafa.

Later in the day, Wafaa reported that four Palestinians were killed by another Israeli strike that hit a vehicle they were traveling in.

The army confirmed the airstrike, saying that “an additional terror cell was eliminated” as part of the counter-terrorism operation in Tulkarem governorate.

The West Bank, a Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967, has been experiencing a surge in violence for two years, exacerbated by the war in the Gaza Strip, triggered on October 7 by an unprecedented attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas on Israeli soil.

Since that date, at least 599 Palestinians have been killed there by Israeli soldiers or settlers, according to Palestinian authorities, and at least 17 Israelis, including soldiers, in Palestinian attacks or bombings, according to official Israeli data.