TULKARM, West Bank (Reuters) – Israeli forces killed at least three Palestinians in an overnight raid in a village near the city of Tulkarm in the occupied West Bank, according to Palestinian officials and a Reuters reporter at the scene.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said one of the Palestinians had died on the way to hospital on Saturday following the raid in Deir al-Ghusun, while a Reuters reporter at the scene saw Israeli forces leave the village with two other bodies.
The Israeli military said it was conducting “counterterrorism activities in the area”.
Saturday’s operation in Tulkarm, a flashpoint city, was the latest in a series of clashes in the occupied West Bank between Israeli forces and Palestinians that has been escalating for more than two years but which has picked up in intensity since the Hamas-led attack on Israel last October.
At least 460 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces or Jewish settlers in the West Bank or East Jerusalem since Oct. 7, according to Palestinian Health Ministry records. Most have been armed fighters but stone-throwing youths and uninvolved civilians have also been killed.
Palestinians want the West Bank and Gaza, which Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war, as the core of an independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital.
U.S.-backed talks to reach an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians have been stalled for the past decade but the Gaza war has raised pressure for a revival of efforts to reach a two-state solution.
More than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s seven-month-old assault on the Gaza Strip, say health officials in the Hamas-ruled enclave. The war began when Hamas militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and abducting 252 others, of whom 133 are believed to remain in captivity in Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.
(Reporting by Ali Sawafta and Maytaal Angel; Editing by Gareth Jones)
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