The Israeli military on Monday said its bombardment of Gaza was less about retaliation for Hamas’s surprise, multi-front attack on Israelthan about conducting precision strikes on known Hamas targets.
But the Israel Defense Forces said it now faces going in on the ground to hunt down Hamas militants amid a population of more than 2 million people.
The Gaza Strip is only 25 miles long by 7 miles wide, with Gaza City at its heart.
The city itself is made up of a labyrinth of streets and alleyways where Hamas fighters can hide themselves — and their weapons — among civilians.
When it comes to sheer firepower, Israel has one of the most advanced, well-equipped and best-trained armies in the region. But ground assaults in urban environments are extremely risky for any fighting force.
Reserve Major General Yair Golan, who has led troops into battle in Gaza many times during his military career, told CBS News it’s one of the “densest places on earth.”
“And you have Gaza on the surface — you also have Gaza of the subterranean,” Golan added, referring to underground tunnels used by Hamas.
Hamas claims to have built 300 miles of hidden networks, with training videos showing fighters emerging from holes in the ground to launch attacks.
In 2014, CBS News was shown a tunnel dug by Hamas that led all the way to the Israeli side of the border.
Many of the estimated 200 hostages taken by Hamas are believed to be held in this underground maze, further complicating an all-out assault.
While previous ground incursions, like one in 2014, saw Israeli forces invade and withdraw in a matter of weeks, this one is likely to last much longer.
“Two years, three years, five years doesn’t matter. We are going to protect our civilians,” Golan said.
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Palestinians are fleeing to southern Gaza after the Israel Defense Forces ordered more than a million people to immediately evacuate. CBS News foreign correspondent Imtiaz Tyab has the latest.
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More than 300,000 people in the Gaza Strip are estimated to have been displaced since Hamas militants attacked Israel, prompting retaliatory airstrikes that have continued relentlessly for days. Despite some fierce international criticism, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has also ordered a complete blockade of Gaza. Imtiaz Tyab has the latest.
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Near Sderot, Israel — Israeli emergency responders with years of experience doing the grim work of recovering bodies broke down in tears Wednesday as they told CBS News what they’d witnessed in the aftermath of Hamas’ brutal terror attack on Israel. The depth of the horror unleashed by Hamas Saturday on Israeli communities near the border with the Gaza Strip was still emerging five days later.
After finally wresting back control of the small farming community of the Kfar Aza kibbutz, Israeli security forces discovered the aftermath of what a military spokesperson said could only be described as “a massacre.”
Residents were murdered wherever the Hamas gunmen found them on the kibbutz, a type of communal living enclave unique to Israel, witnesses have said.
“We see blood spread out in homes. We’ve found bodies of people who have been butchered,” said Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Maj. Libby Weiss. “The depravity of it is haunting.”
IDF soldiers remove the body of a civilian killed days earlier in an attack by Hamas militants on the Kafr Azah kibbutz near the border with Gaza, Oct. 10, 2023.
Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty
Weiss told CBS News that more than one of the Israeli soldiers who first reached Kfar Aza reported finding “beheaded children of varying ages, ranging from babies to slightly older children,” along with adults who had also been dismembered.
Yossi Landau, the head of operations for the southern region of Zaka, Israel’s volunteer civilian emergency response organization, told CBS News he saw with his own eyes children and babies who had been beheaded.
“I saw a lot more that cannot be described for now, because it’s very hard to describe,” he said, speaking of parents and children found with their hands bound and clear signs of torture.
Israel is accustomed to living in close proximity to its enemies, but the last four days have shocked the nation and shaken its sense of security.
Yehuda Gottlieb, a dual U.S.-Israeli national who works as a first responder, was outside the Be’eri kibbutz, another small farming community, as Israel’s security forces battled the militants over the weekend. Security camera video shows the gunmen breaking into the compound and opening fire on its defenseless residents. Israel says more than 100 people were killed in that community alone.
Gottlieb said he’d never seen anything like it as he recalled driving into the town, carefully avoiding bodies that littered the road.
For many — both in Israel and the Gaza Strip, the small Palestinian territory run by Hamas and used as a launch pad for its terror attack — the question on Wednesday, five days after the brutal assault, was how Israel would respond.
It was raining down deadly airstrikes on the blockaded strip of land Wednesday for a fifth consecutive day, perhaps trying to soften Hamas’ defenses ahead of a widely expected ground invasion.
Palestinian officials said the strikes had killed at least 950 people as of Wednesday morning, with some 5,000 more wounded — most of them purportedly women and children.
“We do whatever we can, whatever is operationally feasible, to minimize the impact on the civilians within the Gaza Strip,” the IDF’s Weiss told CBS News. “They are not our targets.”
“The loss of life here is tragic,” she said, but added that Israel “must make sure Hamas cannot launch massacres and slaughter civilians as they did this past weekend. It’s just a reality with which we cannot live anymore.”
NEW YORK—Claiming that the humanizing of occupied peoples is not what the newspaper stands for, The New York Times issued an apology Tuesday for reporting on Palestinian deaths. “Our thoughtful and accurate coverage of the Palestinian death toll in no way met our editorial standards for obfuscation, and for that we sincerely apologize,” said executive editor Joseph Kahn, explaining that the article marked the first such mention of Palestinian suffering in the Times’ 172-year history, and it would certainly be the last. “Rest assured, the individual responsible for bringing to light the atrocities perpetrated on the Palestinian people has already been terminated. We will use this as a teachable moment and redouble our efforts to conceal the anguish of all marginalized and oppressed peoples going forward.” At press time, the Times issued a retraction for incorrectly identifying Palestinians as “human beings.”
Tel Aviv — Air raid sirens blared in Israel’s largest city, Tel Aviv, again Monday morning as Palestinian militants fired more missiles at the Jewish state and the death toll on both sides soared to over 1,500, with at least 11 Americans among the dead. Explosions rang out as Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system brought down some of the rockets, but there was no immediate word on how many might have slipped through.
The latest salvo of rockets, claimed by Hamas’ al-Qassam Brigades military unit, came after Israel said it had struck hundreds of Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip overnight and as four Israeli combat divisions were deployed to the country’s south. Some 100,000 Israeli reservists were called up to fight as battles with Hamas militants continued.
People inspect the damage to a building in the southern city of Ashkelon, Israel, on Oct. 9, 2023, after it was hit during the night by a rocket from the Gaza Strip.
MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP via Getty Images
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said “fighter jets and helicopters, aircraft and artillery struck over 500 Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorist targets in the Gaza Strip” Sunday night and Monday morning, claiming to have destroyed tunnels and at least seven “Hamas command centers” in the blockaded Palestinian territory. The IDF said it also struck a command center used by Islamic Jihad, another Iran-backed terror group based in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.
“It’s taking more time than we expected to get things back into a defensive security posture,” Israeli military spokesperson Lt. Col. Richard Hecht told journalists Monday morning, acknowledging the ongoing battles in southern Israel three days after Hamas launched its unprecedented attack on the Jewish state.
Death toll mounts as Israel bolsters Gaza blockade
An Israeli embassy spokesperson said Monday the death toll has risen to at least 900 Israelis. Most were civilians. Another 2,500 were reported wounded, and IDF spokesperson told CBS News on Monday.
More than 250 of the dead were people who had been attending a music festival near the border with Gaza when gunmen attacked.
At least 11 U.S. nationals were among the dead, President Biden said in a statement Monday afternoon. “It’s heart wrenching. These families have been torn apart by inexcusable hatred and violence,” Mr. Biden said.
An undetermined number of Americans remained missing.
Israel made it clear that it wants vengeance, and in the Gaza Strip, retribution was falling from the sky. The airstrikes had killed more than 687 people as of Monday, including at least 140 children, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. It said another 3,700 more were wounded in the strikes.
Palestinians inspect destruction in a neighborhood heavily damaged by Israeli airstrikes on Gaza City’s Shati refugee camp, early on Oct. 9, 2023.
Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto/Getty
In the coming days, Israel is expected to launch a ground incursion into Gaza, a small, densely packed region sandwiched between the Mediterranean Sea to the west and Israel to the north and east.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Monday that he’d ordered a tightening of the Gaza blockade: “Nothing is allowed in or out. There will be no fuel, electricity or food supplies,” he said in a statement. “We fight animals in human form and proceed accordingly.”
CBS News’ Marwan al-Ghoul reported from Gaza City that the Israeli airstrikes had been relentless since Saturday. While Israel insists it is targeting Hamas and other terror groups, it has long accused those militants of positioning both fighters and weapons in or near civilian infrastructure.
Houses, apartment buildings and mosques were all among the targets hit overnight, most of them without prior warning, al-Ghoul said.
Palestinians inspect the rubble of the Yassin Mosque, destroyed by an Israeli airstrike in the al-Shati refugee camp just outside Gaza City, Oct. 9, 2023.
Adel Hana/AP
“I could not sleep last night as the planes bombed the mosque nearby, causing casualties and breaking the windows of my house,” Samar Alyan, who lives in the sprawling al-Shati refugee camp just west of Gaza City, told CBS News.
“We do not know what fate has in store for us,” she said. “Israel retaliates on civilians.”
The camp is home to some 150,000 refugees.
In the center of Gaza City, schools run by the U.N.’s humanitarian agency in the Palestinian territories, UNRWA, were full of displaced people looking for any safety they could find.
Israeli infrastructure minister Israel Katz said in a tweet that he had “ordered to immediately cut off the water supply from Israel to Gaza,” adding that “electricity and fuel were cut off yesterday” to the Palestinian territory, which is home to some 2 million people.
AP
Israel has been locked in a cycle of violence with Palestinian militant groups for decades, but what happened on Saturday was unprecedented. Hundreds of Hamas militants broke through the steel and concrete barrier that Israel has used for decades to contain Palestinians inside Gaza.
They stormed into Israel by land, sea and even on paragliders as waves of rockets — more than 3,000 of them — were unleashed on Israeli towns and cities.
The gunmen from the group, which has long been designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. and Israel, went on a rampage, slaughtering civilians in the streets, engaging Israeli security forces with deadly effect, and kidnapping hostages including women, children and the elderly.
Some of them were paraded through the streets of Gaza — human trophies that Hamas knows it can use as leverage against its enemy.
One of the captives is Noa Argamani, a university student who was hauled away on the back of a motorcycle as she screamed for help.
“She is an amazing person, a sweet child,” her father Yaacov told CBS News. “I cannot believe it.”
The shocked father said he wanted the Israeli government to rescue his daughter, but “only by peaceful measures.”
“We need to act with sensitivity,” he said. “They [Palestinians] also have mothers who are crying, the same as it is for us.”
“Seems like Israel had no clue”
For many in Israel, the question burning Monday morning was how the country’s intelligence agencies could have failed to detect and disrupt planning for such a significant Hamas assault.
“It seems like Israel had no clue,” former Israeli intelligence officer Gonen Ben Itzhak, who used to recruit spies to infiltrate Hamas, told CBS News. He said Israel — distracted by simmering violence in the other Palestinian territory, the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where it’s been protecting Israeli settlers — let down its guard in Gaza.
“I won’t be surprised if they will start to even kill some of the hostages on camera,” he said, predicting that Hamas would try to force the Israeli government to negotiate.
But Israeli leaders and military officials weren’t discussing any negotiations Monday morning.
With some people calling the attack Israel’s 9/11, military spokesman Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus said the objective was “to make sure that at the end of this war, Hamas will no longer have any military capabilities to threaten Israeli civilians with, and in addition to that, we also need to make sure Hamas will not govern the Gaza Strip.”
CBS News’ Erin Lyall and Duarte Dias contributed to this report.
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel increased airstrikes on the Gaza Strip and sealed off the Palestinian territory from food, fuel, and other supplies in retaliation for a deadly incursion by Hamas militants, as the toll rose to nearly 1,600 dead on both sides. Hamas mounted its own escalation on Monday, pledging to kill captured Israelis if its attacks targeted civilians without warnings.
In the conflict’s third day, Israel was still finding bodies from Hamas’ stunning weekend attack into southern Israeli towns. Rescue workers found 100 bodies in a tiny farming community, Beeri — around 10% of its population — after a long hostage standoff with gunmen. In Gaza, tens of thousands had fled their homes as relentless airstrikes levelled buildings.
The Israeli military said it had largely gained control in its southern towns after the attack caught its vaunted military and intelligence apparatus completely off guard and led to fierce battles in its streets for the first time in decades. But Hamas and other militants in Gaza say they are holding more than 130 soldiers and civilians snatched from inside Israel.
Israeli tanks and drones were deployed to guard breaches in the Gaza border fence to prevent new incursions. Thousands of Israelis were evacuated from more than a dozen towns near Gaza, and the military summoned 300,000 reservists — a massive mobilization in a short time.
The moves, along with Israel’s formal declaration of war on Sunday, pointed to Israel increasingly shifting to the offensive against Hamas, threatening greater destruction in the densely populated, impoverished Gaza Strip.
Already, civilians on both sides have suffered a terrible toll. Around 900 people, including 73 soldiers, have been killed in Israel, according to media. In Gaza, more than 680 people have been killed, according to authorities there. Thousands have been wounded on both sides.
In response to Israel’s bombardment, the spokesman of Hamas’ armed wing, Abu Obeida, said in an audio released Monday night that the group will kill one Israeli civilian captive any time Israel targets civilians in their homes in Gaza “without prior warning.” Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen warned Hamas against harming any of the hostages, saying, “This war crime will not be forgiven.”
A major question remains whether Israel will launch a ground assault into the tiny Mediterranean coastal territory, a move that in the past has brought even greater casualties.
Palestinians remove a dead body from the rubble of a building after an Israeli airstrike Jebaliya refugee camp, Gaza Strip, Monday, Oct. 9, 2023. (AP Photo/Ramez Mahmoud)
Israel and Hamas have had repeated conflicts in past years, often sparked by tensions around a Jerusalem holy site. This time, the context has become potentially more explosive, and both sides talk of shattering with violence a years-long Israeli-Palestinian deadlock left by the moribund peace process.
Israel has been stunned by a surprise attack and death toll unseen since the 1973 war with Egypt and Syria. That is fomenting calls to crush Hamas no matter the cost, rather than continuing to try to bottle it up in Gaza. Israel is run by its most hard-right government ever, dominated by ministers who adamantly reject any Palestinians statehood.
Hamas, in turn, says it is ready for a long battle to end an Israeli occupation it says is no longer tolerable. Desperation has grown among Palestinians, many of whom see nothing to lose under unending Israeli control and increasing settler depredations in the West Bank, the blockade in Gaza and what they see as the world’s apathy.
“I ask you to stand firm because we are going to change the Middle East,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told authorities from the south Monday. “I know you have been through terrible and difficult things. What Hamas will go through will be difficult and terrible … we have only just begun.”
In the early evening, the sound of explosions echoed over Jerusalem when a volley of rockets fired from Gaza hit two neighborhoods – a sign of Hamas’s reach. Israeli media said seven were wounded.
Monday evening, Israeli warplanes carried out an intense bombardment of Rimal, a residential and commercial district of central Gaza City, after issuing warnings for residents to evacuate. Amid continuous explosions, the building housing the headquarters of the Palestinian Telecommunications Company was destroyed.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant ordered a “complete siege” on Gaza, saying authorities would cut electricity and block the entry of food and fuel.
Gallant said Israel was at war with “human animals,” using the kind of dehumanizing language often employed by both sides at times of soaring tensions.
Israel and Egypt have imposed a blockade on Gaza of varying strictness since Hamas seized power in 2007. In recent years Israel has provided limited electricity and allowed the import of food, fuel and some consumer goods, while heavily restricting travel in and out.
Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council aid group, warned that Israel’s siege would spell “utter disaster” for Gazans.
“There is no doubt that collective punishment is in violation of international law,” he told The Associated Press. “If and when it would lead to wounded children dying in hospitals because lack of energy, electricity, and supplies, it could amount to war crimes.”
The Israeli seal will leave Gaza almost entirely dependent on its crossing into neighboring Egypt at Rafah, where cargo capacities are lower than other crossings into Israel.
Friends and relatives of Ilai Bar Sade mourn during his funeral at the military cemetery in Tel Aviv, Israel, Monday, Oct. 9, 2023. Bar Sade was killed after Hamas militants stormed from the blockaded Gaza Strip into nearby Israeli towns. Israel’s vaunted military and intelligence apparatus was caught completely off guard, bringing heavy battles to its streets for the first time in decades. (AP Photo/Erik Marmor)
An Egyptian military official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the press, said more than 2 tons of medical supplies from the Egyptian Red Crescent were sent to Gaza and efforts were underway to organize food, and other deliveries, but the question of allowing in fuel was not yet decided.
Egypt expressed fears of a possible exodus of Gazans onto its soil. The state-owned Al-Qahera news channel, which is close to security agencies, quoted an anonymous high-level official warning against “pushing Palestinians toward the Egyptian border.”
Israeli Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari told reporters that Israeli bombardment was moving from district to district to destroy houses and buildings Israel says are being used by Hamas. Israel is planning to hit thousands of targets, he said. He said “hundreds” of Hamas militants were buried under rubble of buildings destroyed by Israel in the past 48 hours. His claims of the numbers – and his characterization of the dead as Hamas – could not be confirmed.
In the southern Gaza city of Rafah, an Israeli airstrike early Monday killed 19 people, including women and children, said Talat Barhoum, a doctor at the local Al-Najjar Hospital. Barhoum said aircraft hit the home of the Abu Hilal family, and that one of those killed was Rafaat Abu Hilal, a leader of a local armed group.
The U.N. said more than 123,000 people have fled their homes in Gaza – many after Israeli warnings of imminent bombardment. The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said a school sheltering more than 225 people took a direct hit. It did not say where the fire came from.
Meanwhile, after about 48 hours of pitched battles, Hagari said the military has “control” of its border communities in southern Israel. He said 15 of 24 border communities have been evacuated, with the rest expected to be emptied in the coming day.
Earlier, Hamas spokesman Abdel-Latif al-Qanoua told the AP over the phone that the group’s fighters continued to battle outside Gaza and had captured more Israelis as recently as Monday morning.
He said the group aims to free all Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, which in the past has agreed to lopsided exchange deals in which it released large numbers of prisoners for individual captives or even the remains of soldiers.
Among the captives are soldiers and civilians, including women, children and older adults, mostly Israelis but also some people of other nationalities. The armed wing of Hamas claimed on its Telegram channel that four of them were killed in Israeli airstrikes. That could not be independently confirmed.
Egypt’s state-run Al-Ahram newspaper said Monday that Egyptian officials are trying to mediate a release of Palestinian women in Israel’s prisons in exchange for Israeli women captured by militants.
Hamas has ruled Gaza since driving out forces loyal to the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority in 2007 and its rule has gone unchallenged through the blockade and four previous wars with Israel.
After breaking through Israeli barriers with explosives at daybreak Saturday, an estimated 1,000 Hamas gunmen rampaged for hours, gunning down civilians and snatching people in towns, along highways and at a techno music festival attended by thousands in the desert. Palestinian militants have also launched around 4,400 rockets at Israel, according to the military.
On Sunday, the U.S. dispatched an aircraft carrier strike group to the Eastern Mediterranean to be ready to assist Israel, and said it would send additional military aid.
This story has been updated to correct the name of Palestinian family to Abu Quta, not Abu Outa.
Adwan reported from Rafah, Gaza Strip. AP writers Isabel DeBre and Julia Frankel in Jerusalem; Wafaa Shurafa in Gaza City; Tia Goldenberg in Tel Aviv, Israel; Bassem Mroue and Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut; Samy Magdy in Cairo; and Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report.
The U.N.’s humanitarian agency says thousands of people living in the Jenin refugee camp in the Israeli-occupied West Bank still have no reliable access to fresh water a week after Israel’s military carried out a deadly, two-day raid on the camp. Israel has defended the raid, arguing that it was necessary to target Palestinian militant groups that operate out of the refugee camp.
“Jenin Refugee Camp, home to about 23,600 people, including 7,150 children, still lacks access to water, a week after the destruction of the local water network in a two-day operation carried out by Israeli forces,” a report from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said Tuesday. It estimated that access to water for 40% of the Jenin camp’s residents was still cut.
A boy looks at damage inside a house in the occupied West Bank Jenin refugee camp, July 6, 2023, following a large-scale Israeli military operation.
ZAIN JAAFAR/AFP/Getty
Last week’s operation, which left at least 12 Palestinians and one Israeli soldier dead, also drove many Palestinians from their homes in Jenin and left a trail of damage and destruction in its wake, according to the report.
The U.N. agency said at least 173 people, or about 40 families, were still displaced from their homes a week after the military operation.
The report says thousands of others have returned to homes left “uninhabitable” by the Israeli assault, which included strikes by armed drones.
An estimated $5.2 million will be needed to address immediate humanitarian needs in Jenin, according to the OCHA report.
The operation was Israel’s biggest in the West Bank in almost two decades. The Israel Defense Forces struck the camp in an operation it said was aimed at destroying and confiscating weapons from terrorists.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas visited Jenin Wednesday to survey the damage. His visit came just days after three of his senior officials were forced to flee a funeral by heckling crowds furious at the PA’s response to the Israeli assault, the Reuters news agency reported.
Palestinian authorities have launched a ministerial committee to provide reconstruction assistance in the Jenin camp, and the U.N. has said it is in contact with local officials to coordinate those efforts.
Tension has risen steadily since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned to power last year, bringing with him Israel’s most far-right government ever.
Netanyahu’s cabinet includes members of ultra-nationalist political parties that had long been relegated to the sidelines of Israel politics, including his new domestic security minister, who once chanted “death to Arabs” and was convicted of inciting racism.
Aside from the mounting tension with Palestinians, the new Israeli government has also faced a major backlash from Israelis who believe Netanyahu and his political allies are eroding democratic checks and balances in the country.
Jenin, West Bank — The Israeli military withdrew its troops from a militant stronghold in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, ending an intense two-day operation that killed at least 13 Palestinians, drove thousands of people from their homes and left a wide swath of damage in its wake. One Israeli soldier was also killed.
The army claimed to have inflicted heavy damage on militant groups in the Jenin refugee camp in an operation that included a series of airstrikes and hundreds of ground troops.
People carry bags with goods given by a local organization as they walk among debris in the aftermath of a two-day Israeli military operation in Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank on July 5, 2023.
RONALDO SCHEMIDT / AFP via Getty Images
Ahead of the withdrawal, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to carry out similar operations if needed.
“At these moments we are completing the mission, and I can say that our extensive operation in Jenin is not a one-off,” he said during a visit to a military post on the outskirts of Jenin. “We will eradicate terrorism wherever we see it and we will strike at it.”
The Jenin raid was one of the most intense Israeli military operations in the West Bank since an armed Palestinian uprising against Israel’s open-ended occupation ended two decades ago.
Since early 2022, Israel has been carrying out near daily raids in the West Bank in response to a series of deadly Palestinian attacks. It says the raids are meant to crack down on Palestinians militants and said they are necessary because the Palestinian Authority is too weak.
The Palestinians say such violence is the inevitable result of 56 years of occupation and the absence of any political process with Israel. They also point to increased West Bank settlement construction and violence by extremist settlers.
People walk past rubble in an alleyway in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin on July 5, 2023, after the Israeli army declared the end of a two-day military operation in the area.
JAAFAR ASHTIYEH / AFP via Getty Images
Israel struck the camp, known as a long-time bastion of Palestinian militants, early Monday in an operation it said was aimed at destroying and confiscating weapons.
Big military bulldozers tore through alleyways, leaving heavy damage to roads and buildings, and thousands of residents fled the camp to seek safety with relatives or in shelters. People said electricity and water were knocked out. The army said the bulldozers were necessary because roads were booby-trapped with explosives.
After troops left Wednesday morning, residents began emerging from their homes. They found streets lined by scorched and flattened cars and piles of rubble.
The military said it had confiscated thousands of weapons, bomb-making materials and caches of money. Weapons were found in militant hideouts and civilian areas alike, in one case beneath a mosque, the military said.
The withdrawal came hours after a Hamas militant rammed his car into a crowded Tel Aviv bus stop and began stabbing people, wounding eight, including a pregnant woman who reportedly lost her baby. The attacker was killed by an armed bystander. Hamas said the attack was revenge for the Israeli offensive.
A destroyed building is pictured in the aftermath of a two-day Israeli military operation in Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank on July 5, 2023.
RONALDO SCHEMIDT / AFP via Getty Images
Early Wednesday, militants from Hamas-ruled Gaza also fired five rockets toward Israel, which Israel said were intercepted. Israeli jets struck several sites in Gaza.
In Jenin, fighting continued until shortly before the withdrawal Wednesday morning.
The Israeli military said it carried out an airstrike late Tuesday targeting a group of militants in a Jenin cemetery. It said the gunmen threatened forces moving out of the camp. Israeli and Palestinian officials also reported fighting near a hospital in Jenin late Tuesday. An Associated Press reporter on the ground could hear explosions and the sound of gunfire.
Palestinian health officials said 13 Palestinians were killed during the Israeli raid and dozens were wounded. The Israeli military has claimed it killed only militants, but has not provided details.
The large-scale raid comes amid a more than yearlong spike in violence that has created a challenge for Netanyahu’s far-right government, which is dominated by ultranationalists who have called for tougher action against Palestinian militants only to see the fighting worsen.
Over 140 Palestinians have been killed this year in the West Bank, and Palestinian attacks targeting Israelis have killed at least 25 people, including a shooting last month that killed four settlers.
The sustained operation has raised warnings from humanitarian groups of a deteriorating situation.
Doctors Without Borders accused the army of firing tear gas into a hospital, filling the emergency room with smoke and forcing emergency patients to be treated in a main hall.
The U.N.’s human rights chief said the scale of the operation “raises a host of serious issues with respect to international human rights norms and standards, including protecting and respecting the right to life.”
Kefah Ja’ayyasah, a camp resident, said soldiers forcibly entered her home and locked the family inside.
“They took the young men of my family to the upper floor, and they left the women and children trapped in the apartment at the first floor,” she said.
She claimed soldiers would not let her take food to the children and blocked an ambulance crew from entering the home when she yelled for help, before eventually allowing the family passage to a hospital.
Across the West Bank, Palestinians observed a general strike to protest the Israeli raid.
With airstrikes and a large presence of ground troops, the raid bore hallmarks of Israeli military tactics during the second Palestinian uprising in the early 2000s. But there are also differences, including its limited scope.
Israel captured the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians seek those territories for their hoped-for independent state.
Thousands of Palestinian residents fled the Jenin refugee camp in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Tuesday as Palestinian health officials said the death toll from Israel’s largest raid on the camp in nearly two decades had risen to 10. Meanwhile, at least eight people were injured in a car ramming attack on a crowded bus stop in the city of Tel Aviv, which the militant group Hamas claimed was a response to the ongoing Jenin raid.
As Israel’s operation inside the Jenin camp, which sits inside the West Bank city of the same name, continued for a second day, the Israeli army said it was seizing weapons and destroying command posts and tunnels belonging to Palestinian militant groups. Streets were torn up inside the camp, and gunfire and explosions were heard sporadically throughout the day as Israel troops and Palestinian militants clashed, though the fighting was reportedly less intense than on Monday.
Israeli forces intervene with Palestinians gathered to protest an ongoing Israeli raid in the Jenin refugee camp, in Jenin, West Bank, July 04, 2023.
Issam Rimawi/Anadolu Agency/Getty
Jenin Mayor Nidal Al-Obeidi said around 4,000 people had fled the refugee camp to seek shelter elsewhere, and Palestinians across the West Bank observed a general strike to protest the raid, according to The Associated Press.
“We are alarmed at the scale of air and ground operations that are taking place in Jenin and continuing today in the West Bank, and especially on air strikes hitting the densely populated refugee camp,” said Vanessa Huguenin, a spokesperson for the U.N. humanitarian office. She said she’d heard reports that three children were among the dead. Palestinian officials said those killed were between 16 and 23-years-old, CBS News partner network BBC News reported.
The charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said roads in the Jenin camp had been blocked or destroyed, and that paramedics were being forced to travel on foot amid gunfire and drone strikes to reach the wounded.
“The use of attack helicopters and drone strikes in such a densely populated area represents a marked increase in intensity and is nothing short of outrageous,” Jovana Arsenijevic, a coordinator for MSF in Jenin, said in a statement. “The hospital where we are treating patients was struck by tear gas canisters. Medical structures, ambulances and patients must be respected.”
On Tuesday afternoon, a 20-year-old attacker rammed his car into a bus stop full of people in Tel Aviv, Israel’s second-most populous city, before emerging and trying to stab people with a knife. The attacker was shot and killed at the scene by an armed civilian, police said.
Members of Israeli security and emergency personnel work at the site of a car ramming attack in Tel Aviv, July 4, 2023.
Getty
“In the first seconds you think it could have been a mistake by the driver,” a witness told BBC News. “He exited through the window, not the door — like in a movie — with a knife in hand and started chasing civilians. Now you understand it’s an attack. We ran for our lives.”
The militant group Hamas identified the attacker behind what it lauded as a “heroic operation,” and “legitimate self-defense” against the Israeli operation in Jenin.
Israel’s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, visited the scene of the attack in Tel Aviv and called for more Israeli citizens to take up arms, BBC News reported.
Jerusalem — Hundreds of Israeli settlers on Wednesday stormed into a Palestinian town in the occupied West Bank, setting fire to dozens of cars and homes to avenge the deaths of four Israelis killed by Palestinian gunmen the previous day, residents said. The settler attack came as the Israeli military deployed additional forces across the occupied West Bank, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced plans to build 1,000 new settler homes in response to the deadly shooting.
The moves threatened to further raise tensions after two days of deadly fighting in the West Bank that included a daylong Israeli military raid in a Palestinian militant stronghold and Tuesday’s mass shooting.
Israeli settlers stormed the Palestinian town of Turmus Ayya, in the occupied West Bank, June 21, 2023, setting fire to Palestinian homes and vehicles.
Issam Rimawi/Anadolu Agency/Getty
Palestinian residents and human rights groups have long complained about Israel’s inability or refusal to halt settler violence.
Settlers attack Palestinian town after 4 Israelis shot
Israeli media identified the four civilians killed in the Tuesday shooting as Harel Masood, 21, Ofer Fayerman, 64, and Elisha Anteman, 18, Nahman-Shmuel Mordoff, 17. An Israeli civilian killed one assailant at the scene, while Israeli troops chased and killed the second shooter after he fled.
Israeli forensics police work at the scene of an attack near the Jewish settlement of Eli, in the north of the occupied West Bank, June 20, 2023. Four people were shot dead near the settlement, Israeli officials said, a day after an army raid left seven Palestinians dead.
AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP/Getty
In Wednesday’s violence, sparked by the shooting, residents in Turmus Ayya said some 400 Israeli settlers marched down the town’s main road, setting fire to cars, homes and trees. Mayor Lafi Adeeb said about 30 houses and 60 cars were partly or totally burned.
“The attacks intensified in the past hour even after the army came,” he said.
At least eight Palestinians were hurt during the ensuing clashes, which the army tried to disperse by firing rubber bullets and tear gas. By the midafternoon, he said the situation was calming down, though Palestinian hospital officials said three people were hurt by live Israeli fire.
The Israeli military had no immediate comment.
The settler attack brought back memories of a settler rampage last February in which dozens of cars and homes were torched in the town of Hawara following the killing of a pair of Israeli brothers by a Palestinian gunman.
Netanyahu vows to strike “hard,” expand settlements
The shooting Tuesday in the settlement of Eli came a day after seven Palestinians were killed in a daylong battle against Israeli troops in the militant stronghold of Jenin. The worsening violence has created a test for Israel’s government and prompted calls — including by a far-right member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet — for a widespread military operation in the West Bank.
As Israel deployed more forces to the area, Netanyahu said he had approved plans to build 1,000 new homes in Eli.
“Our answer to terror is to strike it hard and to build our country,” Netanyahu said.
The international community opposes settlements on occupied lands that are sought by the Palestinians for a future independent state. Netanyahu’s government — the most far-right cabinet ever in Israel — is dominated by settler leaders and supporters. Opposition within Israel to controversial policies espoused by Netanyahu’s coalition government drove regular street protests earlier this year.
The army said it was beefing up its troop presence in the West Bank. On Wednesday morning, it said troops arrested three suspects in the Palestinian village of Urif in connection to the Tuesday attack and mapped out the homes of the two gunmen ahead of their likely demolition. Israel demolishes the homes of Palestinian attackers as part of a policy it says aims to deter others, but critics say the tactic amounts to collective punishment.
Hamas did not officially claim responsibility for the attack, although it identified the two gunmen — Mohannad Faleh, 26, who was killed by a civilian at the scene and Khaled Sabah, 24, who was killed by the army as he fled — as its members.
In the aftermath of Tuesday’s attack, Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian property in adjacent villages, causing extensive property damage. At least five Palestinians were wounded in attacks by Israeli settlers, Israel’s army radio reported.
7 Palestinians killed in Jenin clash
Tuesday’s shooting followed a massive gunbattle between Palestinian militants and Israeli troops in the northern Jenin refugee camp a day earlier.
On Wednesday, the Palestinian death toll from the raid rose to seven when 15-year-old Sadeel Naghniyeh succumbed to wounds sustained in the gunbattle, Palestinian health officials said.
Palestinian school girls mourn during the funeral of their classmate, 15-year-old Sadil Naghnaghiya, in Jenin, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, June 21, 2023. Naghnaghiya died from gunshot wounds sustained during an hours-long Israeli incursion in Jenin on June 19, the Palestinian health ministry announced.
AFP/Getty
Some 90 Palestinians and eight Israeli soldiers were also wounded in the shootout.
A deadly six months
Tuesday’s deadly shooting was the latest in a long string of violence in the region over the past year and half that shows no sign of relenting. At least 130 Palestinians and 24 people on the Israeli side have been killed so far this year, according to a tally by The Associated Press.
Israel has been staging near-nightly raids in the West Bank in response to a string of deadly Palestinian attacks targeting Israeli civilians early in 2022. Israel says most of the Palestinians killed were militants, but stone-throwing youths protesting the incursions and others not involved in confrontations have also been killed.
Israel captured the West Bank, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians seek those territories for a future independent state.
Israeli warplanes carried out airstrikes in the Gaza Strip early Tuesday targeting Islamic Jihad leaders and facilities, the Israeli military said. The Palestinian militant group said three of its senior commanders were killed, along with members of their families, as they slept in the early morning hours when their houses were struck.
Palestinian officials said 13 people were killed in the morning strikes in total, including at least four children and four women, including the wives and some neighbors of the the Islamic Jihad militants.
Family members and media crowd around the bodies of four children and one women, all family members of Islamic Jihad militant group commanders who were also killed, in Gaza City, in the Palestinian territory of the Gaza Strip, May 9, 2023, after Israeli airstrikes killed a total of 13 people, according to Palestinian officials.
CBS/Marwan Alghoul
Israel’s military said it had targeted the residences of three senior commanders of the Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad, along with weapons and a cement manufacturing facility used to make smuggling tunnels. Witnesses reported explosions on the top floor of an apartment building in Gaza City and a house in the southern city of Rafah. Airstrikes continued into the early hours of Tuesday.
The Israeli army said the aerial bombings, codenamed “Operation Shield and Arrow,” targeted Khalil Bahtini, the Islamic Jihad commander for northern Gaza Strip; Tareq Izzeldeen, the group’s intermediary between its Gaza and West Bank members; and Jehad Ghanam, the secretary of the Islamic Jihad’s military council. It said the three were responsible for recent rocket fire toward Israel.
The airstrikes come as tension boils between Israel and militants in the Gaza Strip, which is ruled by the militant Hamas group. The tension is linked to increasing violence in the occupied West Bank, where Israel has been conducting near daily raids for the past months to detain Palestinians suspected in planning or carrying out attacks on Israelis.
CBS News’ Marwan Alghoul said the more than half of a million inhabitants of Gaza City were jolted awake at about 2 a.m. to the sound of the first strikes as two homes in the city were struck. Alghoul said Islamic Jihad confirmed that its three leaders, along with their wives and some of their children, were killed, and the group quickly vowed a harsh response to the assassinations.
A Palestinian man inspects damage to his building following Israeli airstrikes on an apartment of an Islamic Jihad commander in Gaza City, May 9, 2023.
Fatima Shbair/AP
In anticipation of Palestinian rocket attacks in response to the strikes, the Israeli military issued instructions advising residents of communities within 25 miles of Gaza to stay close to designated bomb shelters.
In a worrying sign that the crossfire could escalate, an umbrella group of Palestinian armed factions led by Gaza’s Hamas rulers issued a statement mourning those killed in Tuesday’s airstrikes and warning that Israel should be held “fully responsible for the repercussions of this cowardly crime.” Hamas has fought multiple wars with Israel, and if it decides to retaliate on behalf of the wider Palestinian factions it could draw much wider strikes on targets across Gaza by Israeli forces.
“The occupation and its leaders who initiated this aggression must prepare to pay the price,” said the statement from the Gaza resistance factions’ joint operation room.
Last week, militants in Gaza fired several salvos of rockets toward southern Israel, and Israeli military responded with airstrikes following the death of a hunger-striking senior member of the Islamic Jihad in Israeli custody. The exchange of fire ended with a fragile ceasefire mediated by Egypt, the United Nations, and Qatar.
The airstrikes are similar to ones in 2022 in which Israel bombed places housing commanders of Islamic Jihad group, setting off a three-day blitz that saw the group loosing its two top commanders and other dozens of militants.
Israel says the raids in the West Bank are meant to dismantle militant networks and thwart future attacks. The Palestinians see the attacks as further entrenchment of Israel’s 56-year, open-ended occupation of lands they seek for a future independent state.
So far, 105 Palestinians, about half of them are militants or alleged attackers, were killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank and east Jerusalem since the start of 2023, according to an Associated Press tally.
Palestinians perform morning prayers by the Al-Asbat Gate as Israeli police again raided the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex in East Jerusalem on April 05, 2023.
Mostafa Alkharouf / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Israeli police stormed into the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City early Wednesday, firing stun grenades at Palestinian youths who hurled firecrackers at them in a burst of violence during a sensitive holiday season. Gaza militants responded with rocket fire on southern Israel, prompting an Israeli airstrike.
A spokesperson for Israeli police said they arrested more than 350 people who had “violently barricaded” themselves inside, Agence France-Presse reports.
The fighting, coming as Muslims mark the holiday month of Ramadan and Jews prepare to begin the Passover festival on Wednesday evening, drew Palestinian condemnations and raised fears of a wider conflagration. Similar clashes two years ago erupted into an 11-day war between Israel and Hamas. The Israeli military said one soldier was shot in a separate incident in the occupied West Bank.
The mosque sits on a sensitive hilltop compound holy to both Jews and Muslims. Al-Aqsa is the third-holiest site in Islam and is typically packed with worshippers during Ramadan. The spot, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, is also the holiest site in Judaism, who revere it as the location of the biblical Jewish temples. The conflicting claims fuel constant tensions that have spilled over to violence numerous times in the past.
The official Palestinian news agency Wafa said dozens of worshippers who were spending the night praying were injured in the police raid.
Israeli police said they moved in after “several law-breaking youths and masked agitators” brought fireworks, sticks and stones and barricaded themselves in the mosque. Police said the youths chanted violent slogans and locked the front doors.
“After many and prolonged attempts to get them out by talking to no avail, police forces were forced to enter the compound in order to get them out,” police said.
Palestinians sort through the aftermath of a raid by Israeli police at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in the Old City of Jerusalem on April 5, 2023.
Mahmoud Illean / AP
Video released by police showed the repeated explosions of fireworks inside the mosque. One amateur video taken by Palestinians showed police scuffling with people and beating them with clubs and rifle butts as a woman’s voice could be heard shouting, “Oh God. Oh God.”
Outside the gate, police dispersed groups of youths with stun grenades and rubber bullets.
Police said one officer’s leg was injured.
Talab Abu Eisha, 49, said more than 400 men, women and children were praying at Al-Aqsa when police encircled the mosque.
“The youths were afraid and started closing the doors,” he said, adding that police forces “stormed the eastern corner, beating and arresting men there.”
“It was an unprecedented scene of violence in terms of police brutality and intention to hurt the youths,” he said, denying police claims that young men were hiding fireworks and rocks. He added that the police prevented all men under 50 years old from passing through the Old City’s gates leading to the compound for dawn prayers Wednesday morning.
Palestinian militants responded by firing a barrage of rockets from Gaza into southern Israel, setting off air raid sirens in the region as residents were preparing for the beginning of the weeklong Passover holiday.
Israel’s military said a total of five rockets were fired and all were intercepted. Hours later, Israel responded with an airstrike in Gaza. There were no immediate details on the target.
The police force is overseen by Itamar Ben-Gvir, an ultranationalist with a history of violent rhetoric against the Palestinians.
In Gaza, Hamas called for large protests and people started gathering in the streets, with calls to head for the heavily guarded Gaza-Israel frontier for more violent demonstrations.
The Palestinian militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad also called for Palestinian residents of Jerusalem, the West Bank and Israel to go and gather around Al-Aqsa Mosque and confront Israeli forces.
In the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian leadership condemned the attack on the worshippers. The spokesman of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, warned Israel that such a move “exceeds all red lines and will lead to a large explosion.”
The government of Jordan, which serves as the custodian of the mosque, condemned the Israeli raid “in the strongest terms.” The Foreign Ministry warned “of the consequences of this dangerous escalation and held Israel responsible for the safety of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque.”
As violence was unfolding in Jerusalem, the Israeli military reported fighting in a Palestinian town in the occupied West Bank. It said residents of Beit Umar, near the volatile city of Hebron, burned tires, hurled rocks and explosives at soldiers. It said one soldier was shot by armed suspects, who managed to flee.
Earlier on Tuesday, a Palestinian suspect stabbed two Israelis near an army base south of Tel Aviv, police said, in the latest incident in a yearlong spate of violence that shows no sign of abating.
The Magen David Adom paramedic service said first responders treated two men for serious and light stab wounds in the incident on a highway near the Tzrifin military base. The men were taken to a nearby hospital for treatment.
Israeli media identified the two victims as soldiers.
Police said civilians at the scene apprehended the suspected attacker, who was taken into police custody for questioning.
Israeli-Palestinian violence has surged over the last year, as the Israeli military has carried out near-nightly raids on Palestinian cities, towns and villages and as Palestinians have staged numerous attacks against Israelis.
At least 88 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire this year, according to an Associated Press tally. Palestinian attacks against Israelis have killed 15 people in the same period.
Israel says most of the Palestinians killed were militants. But stone-throwing youths and bystanders uninvolved in violence were also among the dead. All but one of the Israeli dead were civilians.
Israeli forces shot and killed three Palestinian militants Sunday who opened fire on troops in the occupied West Bank, the military said, the latest bloodshed in a year-long wave of violence in the region.
The Times of Israel reported that Israel Defense Forces said in a statement that the shots had been fired toward a military post near Jit, west of Nablus, where troops of the Golani Brigade’s Reconnaissance Battalion were stationed during what the IDF called “proactive activity.” The soldiers returned fire, “neutralizing” three of the Palestinian assailants, the IDF told Times of Israel.
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, an armed offshoot of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party, claimed the men killed as members.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said the men were killed by Israeli fire near the city of Nablus and identified them as Jihad Mohammed al-Shami, 24, Uday Othman al-Shami, 22 and Mohammed Raed Dabeek, 18.
Israeli soldiers operate in village of Sarra near the Palestinians West Bank city of Nablus, Sunday, March 12, 2023. Israeli forces fatally shot three Palestinian gunmen who opened fire on troops in the occupied West Bank. It was the latest bloodshed in a year-long wave of violence in the region.
Majdi Mohammed / AP
The military said it confiscated three M16 rifles from the militants after the shootout and that one gunman turned himself in and was arrested.
The deaths Sunday bring to 80 the number of Palestinians killed since the start of the year, as Israel has stepped up arrest raids in the West Bank. A spasm of Palestinian attacks against Israelis has killed 14 people in 2023.
The fresh violence follows an Israeli military raid last week on the West Bank village of Jaba, where three Palestinian militants were killed. Hours later, a Palestinian gunman opened fire on a busy Tel Aviv thoroughfare at the start of the Israeli weekend, wounding three people before being shot and killed.
The current round of violence is one of the worst between Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank in years. It began last spring after a series of Palestinian attacks against Israelis that triggered near-nightly Israeli raids in the West Bank.
Nearly 150 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank and east Jerusalem in 2022, making it the deadliest year in those areas since 2004, according to the leading Israeli rights group B’Tselem. Palestinian attacks against Israelis during that same time killed 30 people.
The military says most of the Palestinians killed were militants. But stone-throwing youths protesting the incursions and others not involved in confrontations have also been killed.
Israel says the raids are essential to dismantle militant networks and prevent future attacks. But attacks appear to be intensifying rather than slowing down.
The Palestinians view the raids as a tightening by Israel of its 55-year, open-ended occupation of lands they seek for their future state.
Israel captured the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians seek those territories for their future independent state.
The U.S. State Department is voicing deep concerns about a violent Israeli raid in the West Bank that left at least 11 Palestinians dead and more than 100 injured.
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A member of the Israeli security forces walks a sniffer dog at the scene of an explosion at a bus stop in Jerusalem, November 23, 2022.
MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP/Getty
Jerusalem — Two blasts went off near bus stops in Jerusalem on Wednesday, killing one person and injuring at least 14, in what police said were suspected attacks by Palestinians. The first explosion occurred near a bus stop on the edge of the city, where commuters usually crowd waiting for buses. The second went off in Ramot, a settlement in the city’s north.
Police said one person died from the wounds and Israel’s rescue service Magen David Adom said four people were seriously wounded in the blasts.
Itamar Ben-Gvir, an extremist lawmaker who has called for the death penalty for Palestinian attackers and who is set to become the minister in charge of police under Netanyahu, said the attack meant Israel needed to take a tougher stance on Palestinian attackers.
“We must exact a price from terror,” he said at the scene of the first explosion. “We must return to be in control of Israel, to restore deterrence against terror.”
Police said their initial findings showed that explosive devices were placed at the two sites. The twin blasts occurred amid the buzz of rush hour traffic and police closed part of a main highway leading out of the city, where the fist explosion went off.
Israeli police officers conduct an investigation following an explosion near a bus stop that left at least seven people injured in West Jerusalem on November 23, 2022.
Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu Agency/Getty
Video from shortly after the first blast showed debris strewn along the sidewalk as the wail of ambulances blared. A bus in Ramot was pocked with what looked like shrapnel marks.
“It was a crazy explosion. There is damage everywhere here,” Yosef Haim Gabay, a medic who was at the scene when the first blast occurred, told Israeli Army Radio. “I saw people with wounds bleeding all over the place.”
While Palestinians have carried out stabbings, car rammings and shootings in recent years, bombing attacks have become very rare since the end of a Palestinian uprising nearly two decades ago.
The Islamic militant Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip and once carried out suicide bombings against Israelis, praised the perpetrators of the attacks, calling it a heroic operation, but stopped short of claiming responsibility.
“The occupation is reaping the price of its crimes and aggression against our people,” Hamas spokesman Abd al-Latif al-Qanua said.
Israel said that in response to the blasts, it was closing two West Bank crossings to Palestinians near the West Bank city of Jenin, a militant stronghold.
More than 130 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli-Palestinian fighting in the West Bank and east Jerusalem this year, making 2022 the deadliest year since 2006. The Israeli army says most of the Palestinians killed have been militants. But stone-throwing youths protesting the military incursions and others not involved in confrontations have also been killed.
At least five more Israelis have been killed in Palestinian attacks in recent weeks.
Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war, along with east Jerusalem and the West Bank. The Palestinians seek the territories for their hoped-for independent state.
Smoke billows around Israeli security forces vehicles during a reported operation in Jenin city in the occupied West Bank, October 8, 2022.
JAAFAR ASHTIYEH/AFP/Getty
Ramallah, West Bank — A 12-year-old Palestinian boy died Monday after being shot and wounded by Israeli soldiers during a weekend army raid in a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Health Ministry said. Mahmoud Samoudi was shot in the abdomen Saturday during an army raid in Jenin, a refugee camp and stronghold of armed Palestinians.
During the raid, soldiers entered the camp and surrounded a house. In videos circulated on social media, exchanges of fire could be heard. At the time, Palestinian health officials said two teens, ages 16 and 18, were killed and that 11 people were wounded.
The Israeli army did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Monday’s death.
Israel has been carrying out nightly arrest raids across the West Bank since a spate of attacks against Israelis in the spring killed 19 people. The army said it had traced some of the perpetrators of those attacks back to Jenin.
Mourners and relatives carry the body of a Palestinian man who was killed by Israeli soldiers, during his funeral in the West Bank city of Jenin, October 8, 2022.
Ayman Nobani/Xinhua/Getty
Israeli fire has killed more than 100 Palestinians during that time, making it the deadliest year in the occupied territory since 2015.
The Israeli military says the vast majority of those killed were militants or stone-throwers who endangered the soldiers. But several civilians have also been killed during Israel’s months-long operation, including a veteran journalist and a lawyer who apparently drove unwittingly into a battle zone.
Local youths who took to the streets in response to the invasion of their neighborhoods have also been killed.
Israel says the arrest raids are meant to dismantle militant networks. The Palestinians say the operations are aimed at strengthening Israel’s 55-year military occupation of territories they want for an independent state.
Israeli security forces check Palestinians walking in the Palestinian Shuafat refugee camp in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, October 10, 2022, as Israeli forces searched for a Palestinian suspected of killing an 18-year-old military policewoman in east Jerusalem.
AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP/Getty
Hours after the deadly raid in the West Bank, a Palestinian gunman opened fire on an Israeli military checkpoint in east Jerusalem, killing a female Israeli soldier and wounding three other people, Israeli authorities said. The hunt for the shooter continued on Monday.
It was the latest bloodshed in the deadliest round of fighting in east Jerusalem in seven years. It came a day before Israel started celebrating the weeklong Sukkot holiday, a time when tens of thousands of Jews visit the holy city.
The Israeli troops were shot at a checkpoint near the Shuafatrefugee camp in east Jerusalem. Police said the assailant got out of a car and opened fire, seriously wounding the female soldier and a security guard before running into the camp. The army announced early Sunday that the woman, who was 19, had died.
A Palestinian assailant opened fire at an Israeli military checkpoint in east Jerusalem late Saturday, seriously wounding two people, Israeli authorities said. The shooting came hours after a pair of Palestinian teenagers were killed during an Israeli military raid in the occupied West Bank.
It was the latest bloodshed in the deadliest round of fighting in the area in seven years. It also came less than 24 hours before Israel was to begin celebrating the weeklong Sukkot holiday, a time when tens of thousands of Jews visit the holy city.
Saturday night’s shooting occurred at a checkpoint near the Shuafat refugee camp in east Jerusalem. Police said the assailant wounded a female soldier and a security guard. Israeli rescue services said the woman was in critical condition and the man was in serious condition. A third Israeli was lightly wounded.
Police said they were searching for the attacker, with special forces and a helicopter involved in the search.
“Our hearts tonight are with the wounded and their families,” said Prime Minister Yair Lapid. “Terrorism will not defeat us. We are also strong on this difficult evening.”
Israeli security forces deploy following a shooting attack at a checkpoint near the Shuafat refugee camp in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, on October 8, 2022.
AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP via Getty Images
Israel captured east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed the area in a move that is not recognized internationally. It considers the entire city, including east Jerusalem, home to the city’s most important holy sites, to be its capital. The Palestinians claim east Jerusalem as the capital of a future state.
Israel already has been carrying out daily arrest raids in the occupied West Bank since a series of Palestinian attacks last spring killed 19 Israelis. Most of the military activity has been focused in the Palestinian cities of Jenin and Nablus in the northern West Bank.
Earlier Saturday, the Israeli military shot and killed two Palestinian teens during an arrest raid in the Jenin refugee camp, the site of repeated clashes between Israeli forces and local gunmen and residents. The camp is known as a stronghold of Palestinian militants.
Palestinian officials said soldiers entered the camp early Saturday and surrounded a house. In videos circulated on social media, exchanges of fire could be heard. The Palestinian Health Ministry reported two dead and 11 wounded, three of them critically.
The Palestinian Health Ministry identified the dead as Mahmoud al-Sous, 18, and Ahmad Daraghmeh, 16.
The Israeli military said it had arrested a 25-year-old operative from the Islamic Jihad militant group who has previously been imprisoned by Israel. It said the man had recently been involved in shooting attacks on Israeli soldiers.
It said soldiers opened fire during the raid when dozens of Palestinians hurled explosives and shot at them.
Just before noontime, the Israeli forces withdrew from the area.
Israeli Defense Forces raid Jenin Refugee Camp at early morning hours in Jenin, West Bank on October 08, 2022.
Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) / Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
The killing occurred a day after two Palestinian teenagers, ages 14 and 17, were killed by Israeli fire in separate incidents elsewhere in the occupied West Bank. Rights groups accuse Israeli forces of using excessive force in their dealings with the Palestinians without being held accountable. The Israeli military says it opens fire only in life-threatening situations.
Israel says it is forced to take action because Palestinian security forces, who coordinate with the military in a tense alliance against Islamic militants, are unable or unwilling to crack down. Palestinian security forces say the military raids have undermined their credibility and public support, especially in the absence of any political process. The last round of substantive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks ended in 2009.
Most of those killed are said by Israel to have been militants. But local youths protesting the incursions as well as some civilians have also been killed in the violence. Hundreds have been rounded up, with many placed in so-called administrative detention, which allows Israel to hold them without trial or charge. Over 100 Palestinians have been killed in the fighting this year.
The violence is also fueled by deepening disillusionment and anger among young Palestinians over the tight security coordination between Israel and the internationally backed Palestinian Authority, which work together to apprehend militants.
U.N. Mideast envoy Tor Wennesland said he was alarmed by the rising bloodshed. “The mounting violence in the occupied West Bank is fueling a climate of fear, hatred and anger,” he said in a statement, calling on the sides to reduce tensions and take steps toward reviving a political process.
Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war and 500,000 Jewish settlers now live in some 130 settlements and other outposts among nearly 3 million Palestinians. The Palestinians want that territory, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, for their future state.
