ZIETA, West Bank — An Israeli airstrike on a vehicle in the occupied West Bank killed five Palestinians, according to the Israeli military and Palestinian media, as violence erupts in the Israeli-occupied territory.
The Israeli military said its forces struck a vehicle carrying five militants in a rural area northwest of the northwestern West Bank city of Tulkarem early Saturday morning as the occupants were on their way to carry out an attack.
According to an Associated Press reporter and witnesses, the explosion occurred along a road connecting the Palestinian villages of Zeita and Qaffin.
“I was going to work this morning and I heard an explosion next to the house,” said Taiser Abdullah, a resident of Zeita.
The official Palestinian news agency Wafa said the five Palestinians killed were taken to a nearby hospital and that four of the bodies were “burned and charred beyond recognition.” The Palestinian Health Ministry did not comment on the deaths.
According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, which tracks deaths, more than 590 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza last October. Most were killed in Israeli raids and violent protests, but the deaths also include bystanders and Palestinians killed in attacks by Jewish settlers.
Over the past decade, the northern West Bank has been the scene of some of the most severe violence in the territory. Tulkarem and its two refugee camps have become one of the territory’s main flashpoints of violence and are regularly attacked by Israeli forces. Palestinian militant groups, including Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, are active in the city.
The strike comes days after the back-to-back assassinations of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on Wednesday morning and Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut the night before, escalations that threaten to plunge the region into a full-blown regional war. Iran and its proxies, including Hezbollah, have vowed to retaliate. Major airlines have canceled flights to Tel Aviv, Israel, and Beirut, Lebanon.
Although Israel has claimed responsibility for Shukr’s killing, it has not confirmed or denied its role in the targeted assassination of Haniyeh.
The Pentagon announced Friday night that the U.S. military would deploy a squadron of jet fighters to the Middle East and maintain an aircraft carrier in the region. A day earlier, President Joe Biden said he had urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to seize the opportunity for a ceasefire with Hamas, adding that the assassination of Haniyeh in Iran had “not helped” efforts to negotiate an end to the war.
At least 39,480 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in the past ten months, since Hamas’ brutal attack on Israel on October 7, which sparked the latest war between Israel and Hamas. Palestinian health officials who provide casualty figures do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
