Israel kills 5 Palestinians in West Bank, Gaza death toll hits 41,020
People assess the site of Israeli strikes where several Palestinians were killed, in Tubas, Israeli-occupied West Bank, Sept. 11, 2024. (Reuters Photo)


Israeli atrocities in the occupied West Bank continued Wednesday, killing at least five more Palestinians in multiple airstrikes, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society said.

The five people were killed "as a result of Israeli air strikes (on) a group of citizens in Tubas," Palestinian Red Crescent spokesperson Ahmed Jibril told AFP, adding that the dead were "transferred to the Turkish government hospital in Tubas."

According to the Red Crescent, the drone fire occurred near a mosque in the Tubas region around dawn.

The Israeli military said Wednesday that its forces were currently conducting alleged "counterterrorism activity in the area of Tubas and Tamun" and that one of its aircraft "struck an armed ... cell" during an operation in Tubas in the northern West Bank. It did not provide any toll.

An eyewitness told the Agence France-Presse (AFP) that Israeli forces were "storming the city of Tubas and the town of Tammun to the east."

At the end of August, Israel launched a large-scale offensive across the northern West Bank, including the Tubas area, fighting Palestinian resistance members and leaving widespread destruction.

Last week, Palestinian medics said an Israeli airstrike on a car in Tubas killed five people.

The Israeli army said at the time it had conducted three targeted strikes and that the dead included Muhammad Zakaria Zubeidi, a key resistance member from the Jenin area, also in the northern West Bank.

Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967 and has ramped up deadly raids in the territory since the Oct. 7 Hamas incursion sparked Tel Aviv's genocidal war on Gaza.

Israeli military and settlers have killed at least 698 Palestinians in the West Bank since Oct. 7, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

At least 23 Israelis, including security forces, have been killed in Palestinian attacks in the territory during the same period, according to Israeli officials.

Palestinian children walk past a mosque hit in an Israeli strike in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza Strip, Palestine, Sept. 11, 2024. (AFP Photo)

Scores killed in Gaza

Meanwhile, at least 16 women and children were among 20 Gazans killed late Tuesday and Wednesday in Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip.

An airstrike early Wednesday killed 11 people, including six siblings ranging from 21 months to 21 years old, according to the European Hospital, which received the casualties.

The dead from the strike near the southern city of Khan Younis included three other women, a child and a man, according to the hospital.

A strike late Tuesday on a home in the urban Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza killed nine people, including six women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry and the Civil Defense first responders.

The Civil Defense says the home belonged to Akram al-Najjar, a professor at the al-Quds Open University, who survived the strike.

Israel says it only targets Palestinian resistance members, claiming 17,000 deaths without providing any evidence whatsoever.

It blames civilian deaths on Hamas because its members are allegedly embedded in dense residential neighborhoods. The military rarely comments on individual strikes, which often kill women and children.

The Health Ministry says Israel's genocidal war has killed at least 41,020 Palestinians, mostly women and children, in Gaza and wounded nearly 95,000.