Israel conducts military operation in West Bank city of Jenin
JERUSALEM — The Israeli military said Friday it was conducting counterterrorism activity that included an airstrike in an area of the West Bank city of Jenin. Palestinian authorities said seven people were killed.
The military said Israeli soldiers had “encircled a building where terrorists have barricaded themselves in” and the soldiers had exchanged fire with those inside, while an airstrike had “struck several armed terrorists” in the area.
The Islamic Jihad terrorist group named four of the dead as its members.
The clashes in Jenin, a known terrorist stronghold where the army frequently operates, came a day after the Israeli anti-settlement monitoring group Peace Now said the government plans to build nearly 5,300 new homes in settlements in the West Bank.
The Palestinians seek the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza — areas captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war — for an independent state.
Violence has spiraled in the West Bank since the start of Israel’s war in Gaza, sparked by the Oct. 7 raid into southern Israel by Hamas terrorists who killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took more than 200 others as hostages.
The Palestinian Health Ministry says over 500 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank since the start of the war. Most have been killed during Israeli raids and violent protests.
In Gaza, the war has so far killed more than 38,000 Palestinians, the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza says. The ministry does not differentiate between combatants and civilians in its count.
Cease-fire talks appeared to be reviving after stalling for weeks. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Thursday he was sending negotiators to resume the talks, a day after Hamas handed mediators its latest response to a U.S.-backed proposal for a deal.
The revival of negotiations appeared to mark another attempt by U.S., Qatari and Egyptian mediators to overcome the gap that has repeatedly thwarted a deal over the past months. Hamas wants an agreement that ensures Israeli troops fully leave Gaza and the war ends, while Netanyahu says the war cannot end before Hamas is eliminated.
Israeli negotiators were arriving in Doha, Qatar’s capital, for the talks on Friday, with American, Egyptian and Qatari officials present.
