Two Palestinians were killed by the Israeli military overnight, the Palestinian Authority health ministry said Wednesday morning, as troops continued a major counterterrorism operation in the West Bank.
The PA health ministry said a 25-year-old man it identified as Osama Omar Abu al-Haija was killed late on Tuesday in Jenin “as a result of an Israeli airstrike.”
There was no immediate comment from the Israel Defense Forces on the strike. The military has launched an intensive military assault in the Jenin area, now in its eighth day, to root out Palestinian terror groups.
Many residents of Jenin refugee camp, the focus of the operation, have fled the area. The IDF has said it is allowing civilians to evacuate from the combat zones, but hasn’t ordered anyone to leave.
Shortly after midnight on Tuesday, the PA health ministry also announced that a 23-year-old Palestinian man it identified as Ayman Fadi Qasim Naji was killed in the northern city of Tulkarem “after being shot” by Israeli forces. The IDF did not immediately comment.
The offensive in Jenin, dubbed Operation Iron Wall, expanded to the city of Tulkarem on Monday.
The IDF said on Wednesday that troops had killed some 18 gunmen and detained over 60 wanted Palestinians during the operation in both Jenin and Tulkarem.
Over the past two days, the IDF said troops neutralized over 100 explosive devices in Jenin, and seized numerous other weapons. In Tulkarem, another 30 bombs were neutralized and other weapons were captured, according to the military.
Amid the raid, the military said that troops operated in the village of Shuweika near Tulkarem overnight and demolished the home of a Palestinian terrorist involved in a deadly shooting attack.
The terrorist, Tamer Faqha, was part of a cell that killed off-duty IDF reservist Sgt. First Class (res.) Elhanan Klein near the West Bank town of Bayt Lid on November 2, 2023. Faqha was killed, along with other members of the cell, by Israeli forces in May.
As a matter of policy, Israel demolishes the homes of Palestinians accused of carrying out deadly terror attacks.
Meanwhile, Defense Minister Israel Katz vowed that the IDF would remain in the Jenin refugee camp even after the ongoing military operation there, “to ensure the terror does not return.”
“We declared a war on Palestinian terror in Judea and Samaria,” Katz said during a visit to Jenin on Wednesday morning, using the biblical name for the West Bank.
“Operation Iron Wall comes to defeat the terror infrastructure built in the Palestinian refugee camps with Iranian financing and supply,” he said, noting that the operation would be expanded to other West Bank Palestinian refugee camps.
Katz vowed the Jenin camp “will not return to be what it was.”
“After the operation is completed, IDF troops will remain in the camp to make sure terror does not return,” he said.
Katz also issued a warning to the PA over its policy of paying stipends to those who carry out attacks on Israelis.
“I send a clear message from here to the Palestinian Authority: Stop funding terrorism and murder of Jews, and start fighting terror seriously,” he said. “Anyone who funds the families of terrorists and murderers, and educates their own children to destroy Israel, endangers their own existence.”
The PA’s practice of paying allowances to those convicted of carrying out terror attacks and to the families of those killed while carrying out attacks — referred to by some Israeli officials as a pay-for-slay policy — has been pilloried by critics as incentivizing terror.
Palestinian leaders have long defended the payments, describing them as a form of social welfare and necessary compensation.
Tulkarem, Jenin and their refugee camps are known as bastions of Palestinian terror groups, whose factions present themselves as a more effective alternative to the Ramallah-based PA in the fight against Israel.
Before the current Israeli operation, Jenin’s refugee camp was the site of a long operation by the PA’s security forces attempting to root out Palestinians affiliated with the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terror groups.
The West Bank has seen a surge in violence since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel out of the Gaza Strip ignited the war there. The ministry says over 800 Palestinians have been killed. Most appear to have been fighters killed in battle during Israeli arrest raids, but the dead also include people killed during violent protests, as well as civilian bystanders.
There has also been an uptick in settler violence against Palestinians and Palestinian attacks on Israelis since the start of the war.
Since October 7, 2023, troops have arrested some 6,000 wanted Palestinians across the West Bank, including more than 2,350 affiliated with Hamas. According to the PA health ministry, more than 858 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, 46 people, including Israeli security personnel, have been killed in terror attacks in Israel and the West Bank. Another seven members of the security forces were killed in clashes with terror operatives in the West Bank.