Israeli forces killed the head of a Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror cell in the Nur Shams camp in the central West Bank in a Thursday airstrike, the military said.
Muhammad Abdullah was made the Iran-backed terror group’s commander in the Tulkarem-area camp after his predecessor, Muhhamad Jabber, was killed in a gun battle in late August, the Israel Defense Forces said.
The IDF said Abdullah was killed alongside a second terror operative, without naming the second person.
Abdullah was responsible for organizing the group’s activities in the area, including “many attacks,” the military added. It accused him of deploying explosives against Israeli troops.
The army said troops on the ground seized semi-automatic rifles and flack jackets found on the pair.
Official Palestinian Authority news outlet Wafa said troops also seized the bodies of the two, naming the second fatality as Awad Omar from the nearby town of Bal’a.
Since October 7, 2023, when the Hamas terror group attacked Israel from Gaza, starting the ongoing war, the IDF has carried out more than 70 airstrikes in the West Bank, using drones, attack helicopters, and fighter jets. Previously, airstrikes in the West Bank had been a rare occurrence.
One such airstrike in Tulkarem earlier this month killed some 18 people, according to Palestinian reports. The IDF said at least 12 were terror operatives, including senior Hamas commander Zahi Yaser Abd al-Razeq Oufi, who was planning a major terror attack on the anniversary of the October 7 massacres.
According to the Palestinian Authority health ministry, more than 716 West Bank Palestinians have been killed since Hamas’s attack last year. 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.
Troops have arrested some 5,250 wanted Palestinians across the West Bank in that time, including more than 2,050 affiliated with Hamas.
During the same period, 41 people, including Israeli security personnel, have been killed in terror attacks in Israel and the West Bank. Another six members of the security forces were killed in clashes with terror operatives in the West Bank.