More Palestinians die as Israeli raids on occupied West Bank continue

An Israeli raid on the occupied West Bank city of Jenin stretched into a second day, an AFP correspondent reported, after eight Palestinians were killed the previous day.

Explosions and gunfire were heard from inside the adjacent Jenin refugee camp, the AFP correspondent said on Wednesday.

The Palestinian health ministry in Ramallah said Israeli troops had killed eight people and wounded nearly 20 during the raid, which began on Tuesday morning.

An AFP correspondent saw four bodies at Jenin's Khalil Suleiman government hospital morgue.

The Israeli army said on Wednesday that troops had "exchanged fire with armed men and killed a number of terrorists, including two terrorists who threw explosives at the forces".

The official Palestinian news agency Wafa and medical charity Doctors Without Borders reported that surgeon Usaeed Jabareen, from the government hospital, was among those killed.

A schoolteacher and a student were also among the dead, Wafa reported, quoting hospital director Wissam Bakr.

The Israeli army said it had raided the house of Ahmed Barakat, who was suspected of involvement in an attack on an Israeli civilian last year.

Meir Tamari, 32, was killed in May 2023 at the entrance to a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank, medics and military officials said at the time.

The streets near the entrance to the camp were deserted on Wednesday afternoon, with drones buzzing overhead.

On the outskirts of the city, a group of Israeli armoured vehicles were parked near a roundabout, while farm workers picked vegetables across the road.

'Criminal mentality'

Palestinian resistance group Hamas called the Israeli raid a "massacre" and deemed it "conclusive evidence of the criminal mentality that rules the occupying state and its ideological belief in killing our people".

The office of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the raid, saying in a statement on Wafa that Israel was "killing innocent people, doctors, and destroying the infrastructure of Palestinian hospitals, cities and villages".

The West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, has seen a surge in violence for more than a year, but particularly since the Israeli war on Gaza erupted on October 7.

At least 513 Palestinians have been killed in the territory by Israeli troops or Jewish settlers since October 7, according to Palestinian officials.

Attacks by Palestinians have killed at least 12 Israelis in the occupied West Bank over the same period, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel launched its war in Gaza after fighters from Palestinian resistance group Hamas burst across the border fence on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and capturing more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Following the Hamas attack, Israel launched a brutal offensive that has killed at least 35,647 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to the Palestinian health ministry in the besieged enclave.