Overnight, Israeli forces killed five Palestinian gunmen who were hiding in a mosque in the West Bank city of Tulkarem, including a local terror leader, the Israel Defense Forces, police and Shin Bet security agency said on Thursday morning.
The IDF launched a large-scale operation in Tulkarem early Wednesday. Troops were also operating in the city of Jenin and the Far’a camp near Tubas as part of the operation.
According to Palestinian media, the death toll since the start of the operation had risen to 17 as of Thursday morning.
In Tulkarem, troops of Border Police’s elite Yamam counterterrorism unit were dispatched to a mosque in the city following intelligence provided by the Shin Bet of a group of gunmen holed up there.
The Yamam officers carried out a tactic known as “pressure cooker” that involves escalating the volume of fire directed at a building to force suspects to come out.
The Israeli forces had fired shoulder-launched missiles at the mosque as part of the tactic, and two gunmen were killed.
In an adjacent building, another four gunmen were identified, and three of them were killed in an exchange of fire with the Yamam officers, while the fourth surrendered.
In all, five Palestinian gunmen were killed and one Israeli Yamam officer was lightly hurt in the exchange, according to the military.
Among the dead in the mosque was Muhammad Jaber, known as Abu Shuja’a, who Palestinian media had previously reported to be the commander of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s local wing in the Nur Shams camp in Tulkarem.
Jaber had survived several previous attempts by Israel to kill him, according to Palestinian media.
The Shin Bet said Jaber was involved in planning and directing many terror attacks, including the killing of Amnon Muchtar in a terror attack in Qalqilya in June.
The detained terror operative in the building adjacent to the mosque was identified by Palestinian media as Mohammed Qassas, a founding member of Islamic Jihad’s local wing in Tulkarem.
The large operation, involving the Kfir Brigade, the Duvdevan Commando Unit, combat engineers, and Border Police, was expected to last at least several days, military sources said Wednesday.
On Wednesday, at least nine Palestinian gunmen were killed in a series of drone strikes and clashes with troops in Jenin and Far’a. Three more Palestinians were reported killed near Jenin and in Nur Shams.
In the past 10 months, the IDF has carried out more than 60 airstrikes in the West Bank, using drones, attack helicopters, and fighter jets.
In Far’a, IDF troops located what the military described as a command room used by local terror operatives embedded within a mosque.
The site had numerous surveillance cameras hooked up to television screens, which according to the IDF was used by terror operatives to track Israeli forces.
A video from an IDF drone showed the entrance to the mosque, the walls of which were plastered with “martyr posters.” The video also showed equipment that the IDF said is used to build explosive devices.
Further inside the mosque, several primed explosive devices were found, according to the IDF.
On Wednesday night, Palestinian media reported that the mosque was blown up.
Troops taking part in the raid were operating in an area from which an attempted suicide bombing in Tel Aviv was launched last week, IDF sources said.
The military believed that a terror network that planned and directed the intended attack was based in the Tulkarem area.
The bomber was named by Hamas as Jaafar Mona, from the West Bank city of Nablus. He was killed when a bomb in his backpack exploded prematurely as he walked down a Tel Aviv sidewalk. One passerby was injured.
The Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror groups claimed responsibility for the attack on August 18.
Tensions in Israel and the West Bank have soared since October 7, when terrorists burst through the Gaza border into Israel in a Hamas-led attack, killing some 1,200 people and seizing 251 hostages.
Since October 7, troops have arrested some 4,850 wanted Palestinians across the West Bank, including more than 1,960 affiliated with Hamas.
According to the Palestinian Authority health ministry, more than 650 West Bank Palestinians have been killed in that time. The IDF says the vast majority of them were gunmen killed in exchanges of fire, rioters who clashed with troops or terrorists carrying out attacks.
During the same period, 27 people, including Israeli security personnel, have been killed in terror attacks in Israel and the West Bank. Another five members of the security forces were killed in clashes with terror operatives in the West Bank.