14 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces during a raid in the occupied West Bank on Saturday. According to Palestinian sources, an ambulance driver was also slain while responding to casualties from a separate attack by armed Jewish settlers. Early on Friday morning, Israeli forces launched a lengthy raid in the Nur Shams region, close to the strategically important Palestinian city of Tulkarm. They continued to exchange gunfire with armed militants far into Saturday.
At least three drones were observed hovering over Nur Shams, a neighborhood that houses refugees and their descendants from the 1948 conflict that marked the formation of the state of Israel, as Israeli military vehicles gathered and gunfire bursts were audible.
According to the Tulkarm Brigades, which unites members from various Palestinian factions, there was a gun exchange on Saturday between their gunmen and Israeli forces. Since Israel conquered it during the 1967 Middle East war, the West Bank—a kidney-shaped region roughly 100 km (60 miles) long and 50 km wide—has been at the center of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. The ongoing violence in the region, such as frequent army operations on militant groups, Jewish settlers going on rampages in Palestinian towns, and Palestinians attacking Israelis on the streets, has been eclipsed by the Gaza conflict.
Since the beginning of the Gaza War, hundreds of Palestinians—mostly members of armed groups, but also young people who threw stones and uninvolved civilians—have been killed and thousands of others have been imprisoned by the Israeli army and police during routine operations. At least 14 Palestinians were murdered during the operation, according to Palestinian health officials on Saturday. Two of the victims were identified by Palestinian sources and officials as a gunman and a 16-year-old child. This is one of the highest death tolls in the West Bank in recent memory. On Friday, there was another man killed.
According to the Israeli military, at least four soldiers were hurt in gunfire exchanges and several militants were either killed or captured during the operation. In a another incident, the Palestinian Health Ministry reported that an Israeli gunshot killed a 50-year-old ambulance driver who was heading to the village of Al-Sawiya, which is south of the city of Nablus, to carry injured people following the attack on the community. It was unclear at first if settlers had shot him. The military did not immediately provide a statement.
GAZA STRIKES CONTINUE
The death toll in Gaza surpassed 34,000, according to Palestinian health authorities on Saturday, despite the fact that violence has persisted there even after the majority of Israel's combat forces withdrew earlier this month from southern areas. According to health officials and Hamas media, Israeli strikes struck the southern city of Rafah, where over a million Palestinians are seeking shelter, as well as Al-Nuseirat in central Gaza, where at least five houses were demolished, and the northern Al-Jabalia neighborhood.
According to Hamas and Palestinian media sites, a father, daughter, and pregnant mother were murdered in an attack that struck a residence near Rafah. According to medical professionals, the infant is the only member of the family still alive because doctors at the Kuwaiti hospital were able to preserve it. Before midnight, a second Israeli airstrike on the city claimed the lives of five more Palestinians, according to health officials. According to the Israeli military, forces were conducting raids in central Gaza and fighting Palestinian fighters in close quarters. According to Palestinian health sources, Israeli strikes in Gaza have resulted in 37 Palestinian deaths and 68 injuries during the last 24 hours.
In a battle spanning more than six months to destroy the Islamist Hamas organization that controls the enclave, Israeli ground forces have not yet reached Rafah. This is in response to Hamas's October 7 attack on southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of about 1,200 Israelis and foreigners. The decision to strike Rafah, where the military claims the last organized units of Hamas are situated and where the remaining 133 Israeli captives are said to be held, has drawn strong criticism from around the world, according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
