By Ali Sawafta
TUBAS, West Bank (Reuters) -Israeli forces killed at least six Palestinians in separate incidents in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, as troops continued an extended operation against militant groups in the territory, the military said.
An airstrike in the city of Tubas killed five men the military said were armed with explosives that posed a threat to Israeli forces and destroyed weapons production facilities as well as a vehicle rigged with explosives and a remote control.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said rescue crews had recovered five bodies at the site and had transferred them to hospital.
In a separate incident in the city of Tulkarm, the military said troops backed by police and intelligence services killed an armed militant.
There was no immediate confirmation from any of the armed Palestinian factions that the men killed in the operation were their fighters.
Entrances and exits from Tubas were sealed off and Israeli military vehicles, including road diggers and armoured personnel carriers, could be seen moving through the city, close to the border with Jordan at the northern end of the West Bank.
On Wednesday, as the operations were going on, the military reported a ramming attack east of Ramallah in the West Bank, in which it said the driver of a fuel tanker accelerated towards Israeli soldiers before being shot. An Israeli soldier was killed in the incident, the military said.
Israeli forces have been conducting a series of operations in the northern West Bank for the past two weeks, with extended raids in Tubas, Jenin and Tulkarm. All three cities have a heavy presence of armed factions including Hamas, the Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad and Fatah.
Heavy clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinian fighters have been reported, while streets and infrastructure in all three cities have suffered extensive damage as Israeli forces have dug up roads and destroyed houses.
Qais Ambar, a resident of the refugee camp in Tulkarm, where two Palestinians were killed during a raid on Tuesday, said people had been forced to flee as their homes were destroyed, leaving many seeking shelter in city mosques.
“The bulldozer swept the house, and the rubble covered my neighbour’s house. They forced us to leave,” he said.
Violence has surged in the West Bank since the start of the war in Gaza, with almost daily sweeps by Israeli forces that have involved thousands of arrests and regular gunbattles between security forces and Palestinian fighters.
More than 680 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7 last year, including both fighters and unarmed civilians, according to the Palestinian health authorities.
In the same period, about 40 Israeli troops and civilians have been killed in attacks by Palestinians or in clashes with fighters, according to figures from Israel’s domestic security agency.
(Writing by James Mackenzie, Editing by Timothy Heritage and Philippa Fletcher)
