Thursday’s attack follows major raids across the region which saw at least 10 Palestinians killed as part of an operation the military said could last days
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Israeli troops have killed five Palestinians who were hiding inside a mosque in the occupied West Bank, after launching a huge operation across the region on Wednesday, the military reported early on Thursday.
Palestinian health authorities said 10 people were killed in the Jenin and Tubas areas of the West Bank, and gun battles were reported to be continuing on Wednesday morning. The chief spokesperson for the Palestinian Authority, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, said the escalation of Israeli military operations on the West Bank, at the same time as the war in Gaza, would “lead to dire and dangerous results”.
The president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, cut short his visit to Saudi Arabia to return to Ramallah after the launch of the large scale Israeli military operation in the West Bank. Abbas began an official visit to Saudi Arabia on Monday where he held talks with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh.
UN secretary general, António Guterres said Israel’s launch of a large-scale military operations in the West Bank was “deeply concerning.” Guterres said he strongly condemned the “loss of lives, including of children, and I call for an immediate cessation of these operations.”
The US has announced new sanctions against extremist settlers in the West Bank who are funded by the Israeli government, as Washington steps up its attempt to rein in worsening settler violence. The sanctions target one organisation and one individual with long involvement in the intimidation of Palestinians with the aim of seizing their land. The targeted group was Hashomer Yosh, which provides security for illegal settler outposts, including some which have already been sanctioned by the US.
The new measures drew a sharp response from the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, whose office said it viewed them “with utmost severity” and that the issue was under “pointed discussion” with Washington.
At least 34 Palestinians were killed on Wednesday as Israeli forces sent tanks deeper into Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip and launched strikes, according to medics. Residents of Khan Younis said Israeli tanks made a surprise advance into the centre of the city, and the military ordered evacuations in the east, forcing many families to run for safety, while others were trapped at home.
An official investigation into the ill-fated aid pier off the coast of Gaza has found that Joe Biden declared the US intention to build the pier as a means of delivering food despite advice to the contrary from aid experts in his administration. The new report by the inspector general of the US Agency for International Development (USAid), which was responsible for delivering food to Gaza by the pier, paints a scathing picture of a failed project, in which political and security imperatives outweighed humanitarian considerations.
Israeli, American, Egyptian and Qatari negotiators met in Doha on Wednesday for “technical/working level” talks on a ceasefire in Gaza. The deputy CIA director, David Cohen, said the fate of a ceasefire deal is “largely a question that is going to be answered” by the leader of the Palestinian militant group, but he did not refer to Hamas’ leader, Yahya Sinwar, by name.
Yemen’s Houthi group has agreed to allow tugboats and rescue ships to access a damaged crude oil tanker in the Red Sea, Iran’s mission to the United Nations said, after the Iranian-aligned militants attacked the Greek-flagged vessel last week. The Sounion tanker is carrying 150,000 tonnes, or 1m barrels, of crude oil and poses an environmental hazard, shipping officials said. Any spill has the potential to be among the largest from a ship in recorded history.