The Israeli military said it has killed five more militants in a large-scale operation in the occupied West Bank early Thursday, including a well-known local commander.
There was no immediate Palestinian confirmation of the death of Mohammed Jaber, known as Abu Shujaa, a commander in the Islamic Jihad militant group in the Nur Shams refugee camp on the outskirts of the city of Tulkarem.
He became a hero for many Palestinians earlier this 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.
The military said he was killed along with four other militants in a shootout with Israeli forces early Thursday 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 military said another militant was arrested in the operation in Tulkarem, and that a member of Israel’s paramilitary Border Police was lightly wounded.
Israel launched a large-scale operation in the West Bank on Wednesday. Hamas said 10 of its fighters were killed in different locations, and the Palestinian Health Ministry reported an 11th casualty, without saying whether he was a fighter or a civilian.
Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesperson for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, condemned the raids on Wednesday as a “serious escalation.”
Violence has surged in the West Bank since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack out of Gaza ignited the war there.
At least 652 Palestinians in the West Bank have been killed by Israeli fire in the last 10 months, according to Palestinian officials. Most have died during near-nightly raids by Israeli forces. Israel says the operations are required to dismantle Hamas and other militant groups and to prevent attacks on Israelis, which have also risen since the start of the war, while Palestinians in the West Bank fear the raids show Israel’s intention to broaden the war and forcibly displace them.
Nur Shams is among several large refugee camps across the Middle East that date back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation, in which around 700,000 Palestinians fled or were driven out of their homes in what is now Israel. Israeli forces say many of the camps are now militant strongholds.
Israel captured the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war, and the Palestinians want all three territories for their future state.
The three million Palestinians in the West Bank live under seemingly open-ended Israeli military rule, with the Western-backed Palestinian Authority administering towns and cities. Over 500,000 Jewish settlers, who have Israeli citizenship, live in well over 100 settlements across the occupied Palestinian territory, settlements that most of the international community, including Canada, considers illegal. Settler violence toward Palestinians in the West Bank has risen sharply since the start of the war.
Source Agencies
