RAMALLAH, West Bank – An Israeli was shot dead in a Palestinian town in the northern West Bank on Saturday morning, the Israeli army said, as deadly attacks rocked northern Gaza.
The army said the Israeli man was declared dead after a shootout in the town of Qalqilya and that Israeli troops were currently deployed in the area. In the same West Bank town, Israeli forces shot dead two militants on Friday.
Violence in the West Bank has escalated since the war between Israel and Hamas broke out last October. Since then, at least 549 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the area, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, which tracks the killings. During the same period, Palestinians in the West Bank killed at least nine Israelis, including five soldiers, according to the UN.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian Civil Defense, an emergency aid organization active in Gaza, said it had recovered 19 bodies from a building in an eastern neighborhood of Gaza City that was hit by an Israeli attack on Saturday.
The group said its rescue workers were also searching for survivors at the site of another attack in the Shati refugee camp west of Gaza. The Associated Press could not confirm the numbers given by the rescue group.
The Israeli army said its fighter jets had attacked two Hamas military bases in the Gaza City area, but did not elaborate.
Another Israeli attack in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley on Saturday killed a member of the military wing of al-Jamaa al-Islamiya (Islamic Group), a Sunni Muslim faction closely allied with Hamas, the group said. The member was the seventh to be killed by Israeli strikes in Lebanon since the war began.
The war between Israel and Hamas broke out on October 7, when Hamas fighters stormed southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostage. Israel responded by bombing and invading the enclave, killing more than 37,400 Palestinians there, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between fighters and civilians in its count.
Israeli citizens are prohibited from entering Qalqilya and other areas of the West Bank under the control of the Palestinian Authority.
In April, the death of a 14-year-old Israeli settler sparked a series of settler attacks on Palestinian towns in the territory. The army said a Palestinian was later arrested in connection with the killing.
In 2014, tensions escalated following the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank, eventually leading to a 50-day war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the bloodiest wave of fighting between the two sides to date.
In recent years, the Palestinian Authority’s influence in the northern West Bank has declined as militant groups have become increasingly powerful.
Also on Saturday, the Palestinian Health Ministry said a 12-year-old Palestinian boy had died of his injuries after being shot by Israeli forces in Ramallah last week. Commenting on the shooting, the Israeli army said its forces stormed the al-Amari refugee camp near Ramallah on Friday to arrest a suspect and then opened fire on a group of Palestinians who threw stones at them.
Israel captured the West Bank, along with the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, in the 1967 Middle East War. The Palestinians want these territories as part of their hoped-for independent state.
