The Palestinian Authority said on Friday that at least ten Palestinians were killed in Israeli operations this morning in the West Bank and Gaza, the latter described by Israel as a response to attacks by the Palestinian movement Hamas.
This is the deadliest streak in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since August 2022, when an outbreak of violence between the Israeli army and Islamic Jihad in Gaza killed at least 49 Palestinians, including fighters and civilians, in three days.
The Israeli army announced this Friday that it would carry out attacks in the Gaza Strip in response to rocket fire from the Palestinian enclave. No casualties were reported at this stage.
The US Secretary of State will visit Israel and the West Bank next week
On Thursday, nine Palestinians were killed in Jenin in an Israeli strike presented by the military as an operation against Islamist activists in the refugee camp in this city in the north of the occupied West Bank.
The Palestinian Authority denounced “a massacre” and announced the end of security cooperation with Israel for the first time since 2020.
The US State Department said it regretted the decision, saying it was “very important that the parties maintain and deepen their security coordination.”
US chief of diplomacy Anthony Blinken will visit Israel and the West Bank on Monday and Tuesday to emphasize “the urgent need to take de-escalation measures,” Washington said.
Since the UN began tracing casualties in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in 2005, the UN has not recorded such a high death toll in any Israeli operation in the West Bank.
Source: DN
