the return of airstrikes, 18 killed by Israeli bombs in Tulkarem

They attacked a bar in the refugee camp, the target would have been a senior Hamas leader. The Palestinian agency Wafa He reported that children and the elderly also died. The Israeli army has once again used aviation in the Territories, as has not happened since the Second Intifada.

Jerusalem () – A red thread of blood and destruction links Gaza, Lebanon and the West Bank, the theater of Israel’s war against Hamas and Hezbollah that does not spare the occupied territories where it has been for months, in the face of silence and indifference from the international community. , the attacks continue and the deaths are counted. Above all, the Israeli army has once again resorted to airstrikes, a practice that has not been seen in the West Bank since the Second Intifada, more than twenty years ago. Yesterday afternoon the target was the Tulkarem refugee camp, where the aircraft missiles left at least 18 victims, according to the Palestinian Health Minister.

An internal source in the Palestinian security services referred to the AFP which had been the deadliest attack in the West Bank since 2000. For their part, Hamas and the Islamic Jihad movements condemned the “massacre” calling it a “dangerous escalation.”

The Israeli army justified the operation that the F-16 carried out yesterday in the refugee camp, in collaboration with the Shin Bet (the intelligence agency), explaining that the aircraft attacked and killed one of the heads of the network of Hamas, identified by the name Zahi Yaser Abd al-Razeq Oufi. “Other high-ranking terrorists” would have died along with him. According to the Jewish state’s government, the Hamas member attempted to carry out a car bomb attack last month and was responsible for supplying weapons to the group.

The Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that the Israeli airstrike destroyed a bar in the Tulkarem refugee camp, where many civilians were staying. According to a local official cited by the agency, the bombs also killed children and elderly people belonging to several families in the area. Condemning the operation, the spokesman for the Palestinian presidency recalled that these attacks “will not bring security and stability to anyone, but will drag the region into greater violence.” In a note, the Palestinian government called for “urgent international action to stop the escalation of massacres” against its people.

Tulkarem – which is located in the northern West Bank, not far from the Green Line, halfway between Nablus and the coastal city of Netanya – is one of the small towns and Palestinian refugee camps where in recent months it has erupted again more harshly the protest against the Israeli presence in the Territories. The Israeli army had already attacked it during a massive operation in August. Last month, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, said that Israeli incursions into the West Bank were occurring “on a scale never seen in the last two decades.”

Since Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza began, in response to the terrorist attack of October 7, 2023, there has also been an escalation in the West Bank, with an increase in attacks perpetrated by settlers and repeated ground operations, with drones and now also with air force fighters. Added to this are increasingly strict army controls, which have led to thousands of arrests of Palestinians and repeated clashes between security forces and Palestinian fighters. According to some estimates, Israeli forces in the West Bank have killed more than 700 Palestinians, while 24 victims of Palestinian attackers have been recorded on the Israeli front.