The total number of Palestinians killed today in Jenin during an Israeli army incursion has risen to seven. This was updated by the Palestinian news agency Wafa. Local sources report that four of them were Hamas militants and a fifth was from al Fatah. Another Palestinian was killed by the Israeli army in the village of Abwein, near Ramallah.
In exactly three months of war, Israel has killed ''about 8,000 terrorists'' Hamas, the IDF said on its website. In the northern sector of the Strip, within an area densely populated by 1.2 million people, a military structure consisting of 2 brigades comprising 12 battalions, with a total strength of 14 thousand men, was gradually dismantled after their evacuation. In total, the armed forces have so far found and destroyed 30,40-000,<> weapons and other combat equipment in Hamas bunkers in Hamas bunkers, as well as in schools, hospitals, mosques and homes.
Meanwhile, two journalists were killed in an Israeli raid in Khan Yunis, reports the Wafa agency: they are Mustafa Abu Thraya and Hamza Dahdouh. The latter is said to be the son of a well-known Al Jazeera journalist, Wael Al-Dahdouh, whose story went around the world: he learned while he was in a hospital filming a report on Israeli attacks when he received news that a raid had exterminated a large part of his family, as Anadolu Agency recalls.
And the death toll in Gaza in the ongoing conflict since October 7 is still rising, according to the Hamas-led Ministry of Health of the Strip, which to date has counted 22,835 killed.
In the aftermath of the heavy bombing from Lebanese territory towards the Galilee, Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu today issued a warning to Hezbollah at the opening of the Council of Ministers: "They should learn what Hamas has already learned in recent months. No terrorist is immune."
Israel, he added, intends to allow people in the north, displaced by the bombings, to return to their homes safely. "This is our common goal and we work responsibly to achieve it. If we can, we will do so through diplomatic channels. Otherwise, we will use other ways."
At least 16 people died last night in Israeli shelling in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported. According to local sources quoted by Wafa, 12 civilians were killed and 50 others injured in an attack on an apartment in the southern town of Khan Yunis. The Palestinian agency said four more people died when bombs fell on a school run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in Maghazi refugee camp in the central city of Deir al-Balah.
An Israeli civilian was shot dead today north of Ramallah, in the West Bank, according to the Israeli army, which adds that it is hunting for the perpetrators of the attack.
An Israeli airstrike killed six people in Jenin, in the West Bank. This was announced by the Palestinian Ministry of Health. The Ramallah-based ministry specifies that the bombing hit a gathering of citizens in the city located in the north of the Palestinian territory. Israel says those killed were part of a group of Palestinian gunmen who were throwing explosives at troops engaged in a counter-terrorism operation in the West Bank. In a statement cited by local media, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) explain that four Border Police officers were injured by a roadside bomb in Jenin that exploded as a law enforcement vehicle passed: during the extraction of the wounded officers, a helicopter carried out an airstrike against the armed group that was dropping explosives at the troops. The Palestinian Health Ministry said six people were killed in the attack. The IDF specifies that two of the injured officers are in serious condition. Local sources quoted by the Arabic broadcaster Al Jazeera say that at least one of the border guards was urgently taken away by helicopter. Also according to Al Jazeera, there were several Israeli raids carried out on the ground tonight in the West Bank. In one of these, in Nabuls, the army reportedly arrested a young Palestinian woman after breaking into her home. The other West Bank cities affected by Israeli incursions were Hebron, Qalqilya and Jericho.
Israeli border guard officer killed in Jenin A Border Guard officer, seriously injured this morning by an explosion in Jenin (West Bank), died in hospital. This was reported by the military spokesman. Three other officers were injured with her, one of whom is in serious condition. According to military radio, a powerful bomb that had been hidden along the road exploded at the entrance to Jenin of their unit. The operation was immediately interrupted and the evacuation of the injured was very complex. To cover their exit from the city, a helicopter intervened and hit and killed six militiamen stationed nearby.
The slain officer was identified as Sgt. Shay Garmay, 19. His death brings to 60 the total number of police and Border Guard officers killed in the Gaza Strip, West Bank and East Jerusalem since 7 October. According to the army's reconstruction, at the entrance to Jenin the forces fell into a complex ambush. The vehicle Garmay was in was hit by an explosion. The officers went out to seek shelter and then, under their vehicle, a second device hidden under the asphalt exploded. As a rule, forces raiding refugee camps are preceded by a bulldozer that is tasked with detonating charges and mines hidden in the ground. That location is considered by the militiamen to be the best way to neutralize the army's armored vehicles by hitting them at their weakest point, i.e. the base. In this case, however, the Israeli unit was taken by surprise. While the wounded were transported by helicopter to the hospital, other forces were engaged to recover the damaged vehicle, while they were exposed to constant fire from militiamen stationed around. The operation - which lasted four hours - required the intervention of military aircraft that hit and killed 6 militiamen from Jenin.
An Israeli man in his 30s was shot dead today while driving a car near the settlement of Ofra, in the Ramallah area of the West Bank. This was reported by military radio, according to which the hypothesis of an attack is looming as the car had an Israeli license plate. At the same time, the broadcaster added, other leads are also being examined as the killed is an Arab citizen of Israel.
Israel further decapitates Hamas. The army and the Shin Bet, the domestic intelligence service, announced that the commander of Hamas' Nuseirat battalion, Ismail Siraj, and his deputy, Ahmed Wahaba, responsible for the massacres at Kibbutz Beeri and other locations, were killed Saturday night in an airstrike in Gaza. But that's not all. The IDF also claimed to have dismantled Hamas' entire military network in the northern Gaza Strip. The news comes as the spotlight is focused on the north where "the first response" to the killing of Hamas' number two, Saleh al-Arouri, in Beirut has arrived: dozens of rockets rained down from Lebanon, at least 62 launched by Hezbollah but also by the Sunni group Jama'a Islamiya, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, which targeted the town of Kiryat Shmona. There were no casualties and the Israeli response was immediate: fighter jets attacked a series of Hezbollah sites in the areas of Aita al-Sha'ab, Yaron and Ramya.
Preventing the conflict from spreading is one of the main objectives of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken's mission to the region, who began his tour of Turkey, meeting first with his Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan and then with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and subsequently flew to Greece for talks with Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. The State Department said Blinken "stressed the need to prevent the conflict from spreading" during more than an hour of talks with Erdogan. He emphasized the need to "work for a broader and more lasting regional peace that will ensure Israel's security and advance the establishment of a Palestinian state."
A Turkish diplomatic source said Foreign Minister Fidan reiterated to Blinken the need for an "immediate ceasefire" to ensure the smooth delivery of aid. "We want to prevent the conflict from spreading" and "we are making sure that there is no escalation between Israel and Lebanon," Blinken said from Greece, "we are looking at diplomatic avenues to try to dissipate these tensions." Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh addressed him in a video message, urging him to use his mission in the region to "stop the aggression against the Palestinians" and ensure that "the occupation of the Palestinian territories ends." He added that U.S. support for the Israeli operation in Gaza has "caused unprecedented massacres and war crimes against us." After Istanbul and Greece, the U.S. Secretary of State will be in Israel, Jordan, the West Bank, Qatar, the Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
Blinken's appeal is also joined by the head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, hoping that Lebanon will not be "involved in a regional conflict. It is imperative to avoid a regional escalation in the Middle East, it is absolutely necessary to prevent Lebanon from being dragged into a regional conflict," he said while speaking in Beirut with his Lebanese counterpart. "I send the same message to Israel: no one will emerge victorious from a regional conflict. The only way forward is the creation of a Palestinian state," the only "horizon of hope" for the Palestinians. Nearly 90 percent of Gaza's 2.4 million inhabitants have been "forcibly displaced and have nothing left," said UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, who are facing severe shortages of food, water, medical supplies and fuel by the hundreds of thousands. According to UNRWA, 1.9 million Palestinians have been displaced across Gaza, of whom 1.88 million have found refuge in and around the agency's 155 installations. Palestinian casualties reached 22,722 killed and 58,166 injured. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has forced Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) to evacuate its staff from Al-Aqsa Hospital after days of fighting and an evacuation order issued by Israeli forces: "With a heavy weight on our hearts, we are forced to evacuate," said Carolina Lopez, MSF's emergency coordinator at the hospital. "The war must not end until all objectives are achieved," Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu reiterated on a day that saw thousands in the streets protesting against his line and calling for early elections. "It's been three months since Nimrod was kidnapped and it's like a long, exhausting day that never ends," shouted Rumi Cohen, twin sister of Nimrod, who was kidnapped in Gaza.
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