Six Palestinians and an Israeli police officer have been killed as fighting resumes in the occupied West Bank.
At least six Palestinians have reportedly been killed by an Israeli drone strike in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin.
The attack on the town, home to a large refugee camp, came amid several Israeli raids across the West Bank overnight, the Palestinian Health Ministry reported Sunday. Israeli officials noted that a police officer was also killed during the operations.
Witnesses said human remains were scattered at the site of the drone strike in Jenin.
“We saw some pretty gruesome photos of a number of bodies lying on the ground. People say the people targeted were civilians,” said Tel Aviv Tribune’s Laura Khan, reporting from occupied East Jerusalem.
The strike targeted a gathering of citizens in Jenin, the Health Ministry said. Four brothers were reportedly among the dead.
Israel claimed its planes fired on “Palestinian militants who attacked the troops.”
Witnesses said the attack took place as Israeli forces were withdrawing.
The Israeli army stormed Jenin around 1 a.m. (2300 GMT Saturday) and left around 5 a.m. (0300 GMT), Tel Aviv Tribune’s Khan said.
“We know that there was at least one improvised explosive device that detonated and destroyed an Israeli army vehicle,” she said, adding that there was “fierce resistance” from fighters in the camp.
A border police officer was killed and at least four Israeli soldiers were injured when their vehicle was hit by an IED explosion, Israel said.
A helicopter helped rescue them by providing covering fire, the army said, adding that a plane fired on a “terrorist squad that threw explosives and put our forces in danger, a number of terrorists were killed”.
“This is just part of the nighttime raids we are seeing in the occupied West Bank,” Khan said.
The Jenin Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement, issued a statement claiming responsibility for the attack on Israeli forces.
“We know that at least 5,600 people have been arrested, more than 3,000 injured and with this latest toll we have around 332 Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank since October 7,” Khan said.
Tel Aviv Tribune’s team in the occupied West Bank reported that Israeli forces also attacked the cities of Nablus, Hebron, Qalqilya and Jericho overnight.
In Nablus, Israeli forces arrested a young Palestinian woman after searching her home, according to video footage verified by Tel Aviv Tribune.
The Israeli army’s nighttime raids have been taking place for nearly two years, but intensified after the Hamas attack on October 7, which killed around 1,140 people in Israel.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has since killed at least 22,722 Palestinians and injured more than 58,000 people.
The nighttime raids on Jenin took place during US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to the region. He is scheduled to visit some Arab states, as well as Israel and the occupied West Bank.