Israeli airstrike in northern West Bank kills 5, who army says were planning an attack

Zeita (West Bank): An Israeli airstrike on a vehicle in the occupied West Bank killed five Palestinians, according to Israel’s army and Palestinian media, as violence flares in the Israeli-occupied territory.

The Israeli army said its forces struck a vehicle carrying five militants in a rural area northwest of the city of Tulkarem in the northwest West Bank early Saturday morning, as the occupants were on their way to carry out an attack.

According to an Associated Press journalist and witnesses, the blast took place along a road connecting the Palestinian villages of Zeita and Qaffin.

“I was going to work in the morning and I heard an explosion here next to the house,” said Taiser Abdullah, a Zeita resident.

The official Palestinian news agency Wafa said the five slain Palestinians were taken to a nearby hospital, and that four of the bodies were “burned and charred beyond recognition”.

The Palestinian health ministry has not commented on the deaths.

Over 590 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank since the Israel-Hamas war erupted in Gaza last October according to the Palestinians Health Ministry, which tracks the deaths. Most have been killed during Israeli raids and violent protests, but the dead also include bystanders and Palestinians killed in attacks by Jewish settlers.

The northern West Bank has seen some of the territory’s worst violence over the past 10 months. Tulkarem, and its two refugee camps, has become one of the territory’s main flashpoints, and is regularly raided by Israeli forces. Palestinian militant groups, including Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, are active in the city.

The strike came just days after the consecutive assassinations of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran early Wednesday, and top Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut the evening before, escalations that threaten to plunge the region into a full-fledged regional war. Iran and its proxies, including Hezbollah, vowed to retaliate. Major airlines cancelled flights to Tel Aviv, Israel, and Beirut, Lebanon.

While Israel has said it is responsible for the killing of Shukr, it has not confirmed or denied a role in the targeted killing of Haniyeh.

The Pentagon announced late Friday that the US military will move a fighter jet squadron to the Middle East and maintain an aircraft carrier in the region. The previous day, President Joe Biden said he had urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to seize the chance for a cease-fire with Hamas, adding that Haniyeh’s killing 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 nearly 10 months since Hamas’ brutal October 7 attack on Israel triggered the latest Israel-Hamas war. The Palestinian health authorities that provide the casualty tolls do not differentiate between civilians and combatants.