The Israeli military struck the West Bank city of Jenin on Friday, the third day of heavy fighting in the Palestinian territory. The Israeli military said it struck Palestinian militants and killed a senior Hamas commander in the city.
Such airstrikes, while common over the months-long Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, have been rare in the West Bank in the time since. Israel says the raids across the northern West Bank — which have killed at least 20 people, mostly 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 latest Israeli military operation in the northern West Bank was the largest and the deadliest since the war began. The Palestinian Health Ministry says at least 663 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since then.
In the Gaza Strip, where the Health Ministry says more than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed since the war began on Oct. 7 with Hamas' attack on Israel, an Israeli missile hit a convoy carrying medical supplies and fuel to an Emirati hospital in the Gaza Strip, killing several people from a local transportation company. Israel claimed without evidence that it opened fire after gunmen seized the convoy.
Here's the latest:
Israeli military says it thwarted an attempted car bombing in the West Bank
JERUSALEM — The Israeli military said early Saturday there was an attempted car bombing by a militant near an Israeli settlement in the West Bank.
The attack happened near Karmei Tzur, where the vehicle exploded at a gas station in the Gush Etzion junction. Israeli forces killed a suspected militant there, the military said.