Israel kills nine militants in West Bank during ongoing ceasefire negotiations
Representative image: The explosion occurred along a road connecting the Palestinian villages of Zeita and Qaffin. Photo: Bloomberg
Two Israeli airstrikes on the West Bank killed nine Palestinian militants on Saturday, the Israeli military said, amid renewed violence in Israeli-occupied territory and heightened tensions over the war in Gaza and a potential escalation in the region.
Gaza ceasefire talks continued, with an Israeli delegation led by the Mossad chief briefly visiting Cairo, an Egyptian official said. The US has urged Israel to seize the opportunity for a ceasefire following the shocking assassination of the political leader of Hamas in Iran, which Tehran blames on Israel.
That killing and Israel’s assassination of a Hezbollah commander in Lebanon have the region holding its breath for retaliation against Israel on either front, or both, after Iran and its proxies vowed to take action. Hamas said its command had begun talks on choosing a new leader.
In the northern West Bank, the Israeli military said its forces first attacked a vehicle in a rural area outside the town of Tulkarem early Saturday, killing the five occupants. The military said they were on their way to carry out an attack. Hamas identified all five as militants with the group, including a local commander.
According to an Associated Press journalist and witnesses, the explosion occurred along a road connecting the Palestinian villages of Zeita and Qaffin.
“We arrived and found a young man who had been killed on the street here, with half of his face missing,” said Taiser Abdullah, a resident of Zeita. The official Palestinian news agency Wafa said four bodies had been burned and charred beyond recognition.
Later on Saturday, the Israeli military said it had killed four other Palestinian militants in the Tulkarem area, shortly after they opened fire on Israeli troops. No further information was immediately available.
According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, more than 590 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank since the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza began in October. Most were killed during Israeli raids and violent protests. Tulkarem is regularly raided by Israeli forces and Palestinian militant groups, including Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, are active there.
An attack in central Gaza early Sunday hit a tent camp in the courtyard of Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, killing four people, including a woman, and wounding others, health officials said.
An Associated Press journalist filmed men rushing to the scene to help the wounded and recover bodies as they tried to extinguish the fire. The hospital in Deir al Balah is the main medical facility in central Gaza, and thousands of people have sought shelter there after fleeing their homes in the war-torn area.
Concerns about a full-fledged regional war are high after the killings of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on Wednesday morning and of top Hezbollah commander Fouad Shukur in Beirut the night before.
Iran and its allies, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah, vowed to take revenge on Israel, which said it killed Shukur but has neither confirmed nor denied its role in Haniyeh’s death. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said a short-range missile was behind the killing and accused the United States of supporting the attack.
The Pentagon said Friday night that the U.S. military will move a squadron of fighter jets to the Middle East and maintain an aircraft carrier in the region.
The US Embassy in Lebanon is encouraging citizens who want to leave to “book every available ticket.” The embassy notes that several airlines have suspended or canceled flights.
The British government urged its citizens in Lebanon to leave now. Jordan did the same.
President Joe Biden said Thursday that he had urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to seize the opportunity for a ceasefire with Hamas, adding that Haniyeh’s killing had not helped negotiations to end the war. Netanyahu has vowed to destroy Hamas’ military and governance capabilities.
An Israeli delegation led by Mossad chief David Barnea arrived in Cairo on Saturday afternoon, an Egyptian official said. The delegation, which included Ronan Bar, head of Israel’s Shin Bet internal security service, was to meet with Abbas Kamel, head of Egypt’s General Intelligence Service, for talks on the Philadelphia corridor along the border with Egypt and the Rafah crossing, the official said.
The delegation left Cairo hours later and there was no news, said the Egyptian official, who has direct knowledge of the Gaza ceasefire negotiations. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to brief reporters.
There was no immediate comment from Israeli officials. Netanyahu’s office said late Friday that he had ordered the negotiating team to leave for Cairo on Saturday or Sunday.
Egypt’s foreign minister has spoken to his counterparts in Iran and Lebanon about the dangerous escalation in the region.
As protesters in several countries commemorated 300 days of war in Gaza and showed their support for the Palestinians, the death toll in the area has approached 40,000. At least 39,550 people have been killed in the nearly 10 months since Hamas’s brutal attack on Israel on October 7, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and fighters in its count. Israel accuses Hamas of closing in on and endangering civilians.
In Gaza City’s Sheikh Radwan neighborhood, witnesses told the AP on Saturday that an Israeli strike on a school killed an unknown number of people. The Israeli military said it had struck a Hamas command center.
Most of Gaza’s population, some 2.3 million, has been displaced, many multiple times, as the Israeli army returns to areas where Hamas militants say they have regrouped. Health care and sanitation services have largely collapsed across the region as hunger increases.
Families of hostages taken on October 7 and others held further protests in Israel on Saturday night, calling for a deal to end the war. Most of the military goals have been achieved, there is no reason to continue this war, said one protester, Naama Weinberg.
(Only the headline and image of this report may have been edited by Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
First print: Aug 04, 2024 | 10:19 AM IST