Jerusalem, Sep 11 (EFE).- At least five people were killed in an Israeli airstrike near the city of Tubas, in the northeast of the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) and the ministry of health of the Palestinian National Authority, which governs small parts of the territory, said Wednesday.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that the attack was directed against an armed terrorist squad in the area as part of an intense offensive against Palestinian militias in the north of the West Bank, which began last week.
Official Palestinian news agency, Wafa, reported that the attack took place near a mosque and that all the victims were between 18 and 24 years old.
Israeli forces also surrounded the Tubas Turkish Governmental Hospital on the northern outskirts of the city, preventing ambulances from accessing the complex, the agency added.
Two more people were killed on Tuesday night in an Israeli raid in Tulkarm, including a woman, and another 10 were wounded, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
The Red Crescent reported that Israeli forces attacked one of its paramedics in the city with live bullets while he was treating a wounded person in Tulkarm Camp, and briefly detained two other medics after storming the group’s ambulance center.
On Wednesday, the PRCS warned that five of its paramedics remained detained by Israeli forces in Tulkarem, and that they had not heard from them since early morning.
On Aug. 28, the Israeli military launched an incursion, called ‘Operation Summer Camps,’ in the northern cities of Jenin, Tulkarm and Tubas, all historical strongholds of the Palestinian militias.
At least 36 Palestinians have been killed in the three cities in air strikes and clashes, including eight children and two elderly people.
Some 150 people have also been injured, and several homes, businesses and streets destroyed.
The West Bank has been experiencing the worst wave of violence since the Second Intifada, a five-year uprising that ended in 2005, with at least 355 deaths so far this year.
Most of the casualties are suspected militants and attackers but also include civilians, among them around 60 children.
Israeli incursions in the occupied West Bank have intensified after the surprise Hamas attack on Israeli territory on Oct. 7.
Since then, more than 682 Palestinians have died, including 150 children.
On the Israeli side, 28 people have died this year, including 14 soldiers and 14 civilians, eight of them settlers. EFE
jdg/pd
