Israel pushes for West Bank airstrikes that Palestinians say have killed 27

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Adds the offering of Kfar Dan, spox of the Jenin commune

Israeli forces carried out operations in the northern West Bank on Tuesday. The airstrikes in the occupied territory have been ongoing for almost a week, killing at least 27 people, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

An Israeli airstrike carried out overnight, according to the military, against militants in Tulkarm led to the death of a 15-year-old Palestinian, a source at a hospital in the city said.

“Since Wednesday, 30 people have been killed and around 130 injured in the West Bank” when the Israeli military carried out a series of coordinated airstrikes, the Palestinian Health Ministry said in a statement.

The toll includes three deaths in the Hebron area, in the southern West Bank, in incidents unrelated to airstrikes in the north.

On the seventh day of a major Israeli “counterterrorism” operation in the northern West Bank, attention turned to the Jenin area, where at least 18 people have been killed since Wednesday, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

The military said on Monday it had killed 14 militants in Jenin and detained “25 terrorists”.

In a separate incident, a 16-year-old girl was killed by the Israeli army in the city of Kfar Dan, Jenin province, the health ministry said on Tuesday, without specifying whether she was one of the 18 people killed in the area.

An AFP correspondent reported that on Tuesday, the streets of Jenin were empty and shops were closed. There were only a few vehicles on the roads: Israeli armored vehicles, military bulldozers and ambulances.

The correspondent reported that in several areas, Israeli bulldozers destroyed asphalt streets. According to the army, this is a way to detonate explosives hidden under the roads.

The Jenin City Council reported that 70 percent of roads and streets had been destroyed since the beginning of the air raid.

Bashir Matahen, a spokesman for the municipality, said about 20 kilometers of water, sewage, communication and power lines had been destroyed, including 80 percent of the city’s water supply.

He told AFP that the commune lacked the funds to carry out all the necessary repairs.

Jenin and its neighbouring refugee camp, where military bulldozers have also destroyed infrastructure, have long been a stronghold of Palestinian armed groups fighting Israel, which has occupied the West Bank since 1967.

The military regularly carries out attacks on Palestinian population centers, but these operations rarely take place simultaneously, as in recent days in the northern West Bank.

In Tulkarem, near Jenin, the Israeli military said Monday evening that its aircraft had attacked a Palestinian militant cell “that was shooting at security forces during a counter-terrorism operation.”

A medical source at the state hospital in Tulkarem told AFP on Tuesday that a 15-year-old teenager was killed in the attack and his father and four other people were also injured.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said its teams had treated several people injured in shrapnel in Tulkarm, including one paramedic.

An AFP journalist reported that Israeli military vehicles, including bulldozers, were seen on the streets of Tulkarem on Tuesday. Roads in the area were also damaged or destroyed.

One man holding a Palestinian flag stood defiantly in front of the bulldozers.

Further south, Israeli forces entered the campus of Birzeit University near Ramallah before dawn on Tuesday, confiscating property from the student government, the institution said in a statement.

Violence in the Palestinian territory has increased following an October 7 Hamas attack that sparked a war in the Gaza Strip, which is separated from the West Bank by Israeli territory.

Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed at least 637 Palestinians in the West Bank since the beginning of the Gaza war, according to a UN tally last week.

According to Israeli authorities, at least 23 Israelis, including soldiers, were killed in Palestinian attacks during the same period.

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