Israeli attack in West Bank city leaves 7 dead and journalist injured, Palestinians say | CBC News (2024)

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· Posted: May 21, 2024 7:53 PM EDT | Last Updated: May 21

Israeli forces raided the West Bank city ofJeninon Tuesday, killing seven Palestinians, including a doctor and a teenager, during a major operation that involved dozens of vehiclesand continued into the night, witnesses and Palestinian health authorities said.

The Israeli military said the operation targeted armed militants in the city, which it called a long-standing centre for groups including Hamas, Fatah andthe Islamic Jihad, and it said a number of Palestinian gunmen were shot.

"Undercover forces raided the area suddenly and they were firing at any moving body in the street," said ambulance driver Hazim Masarwa. "They were targeting anything moving."

Heavy-tracked armoured bulldozers tore up streets near the centreof the city, protected by Israeli forces in at least 20 vehicles. PhotojournalistAmr Manasrasays he was hit by shrapnel while he was covering the raid inside the refugee camp.

"We tried to tell them we were journalist and, of course, there was no one in the street except us," he said in an interview Tuesday that was provided to CBC News. "When we got close ... they opened fire directly on us."

Video footage later posted on X, formerly known as Twitter,shows Manasra in a navy blue press vest rolling onto a stretcher to receive medical help.

Authorities said ateacher and a doctor, both of whom were on their way to work in the city,as well as a 15-year-old and a 16-year-old wereamong the seven people killed. There was no immediate information on the identities of the other dead, or the nine wounded, as the operation continued throughout the morning.

"Jeninhospital is the main governmental hospital inJenin,and it is surrounded now," said hospital director Wissam Baker. "It looks it will be tough hours ahead, because the [Israeli] occupation is gathering more forces."

He said the hospital's specialist surgeon was among those killed, after he was shot while on his way to work.

The occupied West Bank, which Palestinians want to have as the core of a future independent state along with the Gaza Strip, has seen a surge in violence since the start of the war in Gaza last year, and a major crackdown by Israeli security forces, which have made thousands of arrests.

In the seven months since the start of the war, hundreds of Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, many of them armed militants fighting Israeli forces, but others including stone-throwing youths or uninvolved civilians. Several have also been killed in clashes with Israeli settlers.

WATCH | 'They opened fire directly on us,' photojournalist says:

Attack on Jabalia

Israeli forces thrust deeper into Jabalia in northern Gaza on Tuesday, striking a hospital and destroying residential areas with tank and air bombardments, residents said, while Israeli airstrikes killed at least five people inRafahin the south.

In Jabalia, a sprawling refugee camp built for displaced civilians 75 years ago, the Israeli army used bulldozers to clear shops and property near the local market, residents said, in a military operation that began almost two weeks ago.

Israel said it has returned to the camp, where it claimed to have dismantled Hamas months ago, to prevent the militant group that controls Gaza from regrouping.

In a roundup of its activity over the past day, the Israeli military said it had dismantled "about 70 terror targets" throughout the Gaza Strip, including military compounds, weapon storage sites, missile launchers and observation posts.

Palestinian medics said Israeli missiles struck the emergency department of Jabalia'sKamal Adwan Hospital, prompting panicked staff to rush patients on hospital beds and stretchers to the rubble-strewn street outside.

"The first missile ... hit the entrance of the emergency department. We tried to enter, and then a second missile hit, and the third hit the building nearby," said Hussam Abu Safia, the head of hospital.

"We cannot go back inside to them.... The emergency department provides a service for children, the elderly and people inside the departments of the hospital."

WATCH | Palestinians draw comparisons between 1948 Nakba and current Gaza war:

Residents and medics said Israeli tanks were besieging another Jabalia hospital, Al-Awda Hospital, for the third day.

In Geneva, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesussaidnorthern Gaza's sick and wounded were running out of options.

"These are the only two functional hospitals remaining in northern Gaza," Tedros said. "Ensuring their ability to deliver health services is imperative."

More than 35,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to the Gaza health ministry, in awar that is now in its eighth month. At least 10,000 others are missing and believed to be trapped under destroyed buildings, the ministry says.

Israel is seeking to eradicate Hamas after the group led an attackinto southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 and taking more than 250 hostages, by Israeli tallies.Hamasis still holding around 125 people hostage, Israel says.

The war has devastated the overcrowded coastal enclave, destroying houses, schools and hospitals and creating a dire humanitarian crisis.

Aid from a U.S.-built pier resumed moving into warehouses in Gaza on Tuesday using alternative routes, the Pentagon said. The distribution was halted for three days after crowds of residents intercepted trucks.

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