TULKAREM, West Bank (AP) — The Israeli military said it killed five more West Bank militants, including a local commander, as it pressed ahead Thursday with its deadliest operation in the occupied territory since the start of the war in Gaza. Israel says the raids across the northern West Bank — which have killed a total of 16 people, nearly all militants, since late Tuesday — are aimed at preventing attacks. The Palestinians see them as a widening of the war in Gaza and an effort to perpetuate Israel’s decades-long military rule over the territory.
The raids drew alarm from the United Nations and neighboring Jordan, as well as from British and French leaders, who stressed the urgency of cease-fire in Gaza after nearly 11 months of fighting between Israel and Hamas. Medics at al-Awda Hospital in central Gaza said Thursday nine Palestinians from the same family — including two women and five young children — were killed in an Israeli strike on an apartment building in the Nuseirat refugee camp. Israel did not immediately offer comment on the intended target of its attack. Beginning Sunday, Israel will pause some military operations in Gaza to allow health workers to begin administering polio vaccines to some 650,000 Palestinian children, the U.N. World Health Organization said Thursday. A case was discovered earlier this month for the first time in 25 years. In the West Bank, the Islamic Jihad militant group confirmed that Mohammed Jaber, known as Abu Shujaa, was killed during a raid in the city of Tulkarem. He became a hero for many Palestinians earlier in the year when he was reported killed in an Israeli operation, only to make a surprise appearance at the funeral of other militants, where he was hoisted onto the shoulders of a cheering crowd. Israel said he was killed Thursday along with four other militants in a shootout after the five had hidden inside a mosque. It said Abu Shujaa was linked to numerous attacks on Israelis, including a deadly shooting in June, and was planning more. The army also said it uncovered caches of weapons, explosive devices and other military equipment inside a mosque in Fara’a and arrested another militant in Tulkarem, where a member of Israel’s paramilitary Border Police was lightly wounded. Israel’s latest operation in the West Bank began late Tuesday in several locations, and Hamas confirmed 10 of its fighters were killed. The Palestinian Health Ministry reported an 11th death on Wednesday, without saying whether he was a fighter or a civilian. The overall toll of 16 killed in less than two days makes it the deadliest Israeli operation in the West Bank since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack into Israel that ignited the war. The raids have focused on refugee camps that date back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation, in which around 700,000 Palestinians fled or were driven out of what is now Israel. Many of the camps are militant strongholds. Hamas repeated its calls for Palestinians in the West Bank to rise up, calling the raids part of a larger plan to expand the war in Gaza. The militant group has urged security forces loyal to the Western-backed Palestinian Authority, which cooperate with Israel, to “join the sacred battle of our people.”