More than 100 Palestinians have been killed across the occupied West Bank since war erupted between Israel and Gaza’s Islamist rulers Hamas on October 7, the health ministry said Wednesday.
Violence had already spiralled in the West Bank before the Gaza war, with the highest death toll in the Palestinian territory since at least 2005.
Many of the Palestinian deaths came in raids by Israeli troops but there has also been a rise in clashes between Palestinians and Israeli settlers, with civilians and fighters killed on both sides.
Gaza’s latest and by far deadliest war broke out when Hamas militants attacked Israel, killing more than 1,400 people, most of them civilians, and taking 222 hostages, according to Israeli authorities.
The health ministry in Hamas-controlled Gaza said by Tuesday more than 6,500 people had been killed, also mostly civilians, as Israel has bombarded the territory.
Since October 7, tensions and bloodshed have surged in the West Bank, including annexed east Jerusalem, with the Palestinian death toll reaching 102, according to the Ramallah-based health ministry.
Over the same period, the Israeli military has reported one member of the security forces killed while taking part in a raid.
In the latest violence, four Palestinians were killed in Jenin and one in Qalqilya, both in the northern West Bank. One Palestinian was also killed in Qalandia, just north of Jerusalem.
The health ministry blamed Israeli “bullets and missiles.”
The Israeli military said it launched a drone strike on “terrorists” in the densely populated Jenin refugee camp, where it said “armed terrorists fired and hurled explosive devices at Israeli security forces”.
In Qalqilya, a military spokeswoman told AFP, soldiers fired on people who “hurled explosive devices, Molotov cocktails and rocks at the forces.”
Troops also opened fire in Qalandia, which the army said came in response to suspects who “threw burning tyres, blocks and IEDs (improvised explosive devices) and shot at forces.”
Israel has occupied the West Bank since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and withdrew from Gaza in 2005, subsequently imposing a crippling blockade on the coastal territory.
