Israeli forces kill at least eight Palestinians in West Bank clashes, medics say

[August 06, 2024]  (Reuters) -Israeli forces killed at least four people in the volatile city of Jenin in the occupied West Bank, medics said on Tuesday, following a night of violence in which four others were killed in clashes near Tubas, close to the border with Jordan.   

Officials work at the scene of a suspected stabbing attack at a checkpoint in Bethlehem in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, August 6, 2024. REUTERS/Ammar Awad

The Israeli military said it conducted two separate air strikes in the West Bank, hitting armed militants, but gave no details.

The Palestinian Red Crescent confirmed that four people were killed in the strikes against two vehicles in Jenin, one of the most explosive flashpoints in the West Bank. Another person was critically wounded.

The strikes came during an operation in Jenin in which footage shared on social media showed a column of armored personnel carriers entering the city and armored bulldozers digging up roads.

With Israel bracing for an expected Iranian response to the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran last week, the West Bank violence underscored the multi-front security challenge facing Israeli forces, 10 months after the start of the war in Gaza.

Israeli forces have killed hundreds of Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since the start of the war, many of them armed fighters but many also stone-throwing youths or uninvolved civilians.

At the same time, at least 13 Israelis have been killed in attacks by Palestinian attackers. On Tuesday, a female border guard was wounded in a stabbing attack by a Palestinian man using a screwdriver during an inspection of a bus at a chackpoint on the outskirts of Jerusalem.

The attacker was shot dead, the police said.

Overnight, the Palestinian health ministry said at least four Palestinians were killed and seven others injured by Israeli fire in the town of Aqaba, close to the city of Tubas.

Two of the injured were in critical condition.

The official Palestinian news agency WAFA said the clashes occurred after Israeli forces surrounded a house in Aqaba and clashed with a group of young men.

(Reporting by Ali Sawafta; Editing by David Gregorio and Andrew Cawthorne)

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