WORLD NEWS | Israeli military kills 2 Palestinians in West Bank attack

Ramallah (West Bank), Jan. 19 (AP) — Israeli forces shot and killed two Palestinians early Thursday during a military raid in the occupied West Bank, Palestinian media reported. , Israeli-Palestinian violence continues to surge.

The official Wafa news agency identified the dead as Jawad Bawatqa, 58, and Adham Jabarin. They were shot dead in the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank.

Read also | Nepal air crash: Families fail to identify four Uttar Pradesh victims among charred bodies.

Palestinian media said Bawatka was a teacher, while the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade – an armed militia affiliated with Fatah, the secular party that controls the Palestinian Authority – claimed Jabalin was a fighter.

The Israeli military said it had no immediate comment.

Read also | Jacinda Ardern announces she will resign as Prime Minister of New Zealand in February and will not run in the general election (watch video).

Palestinian media also reported that Israeli forces arrested a local official of the militant group Islamic Jihad in Jenin.

Tensions have soared in the West Bank, where the Israeli military has carried out arrest raids almost every night since last spring, following a wave of Palestinian attacks on Israelis that killed 19 people.

Later last year, 10 more Israelis were killed in a second round of attacks.

Israel said the attack was aimed at disabling the militant network and preventing future attacks.

Palestinians see them as a further entrenchment of Israel’s 55-year unrestricted occupation of land they seek a future state.

Thursday’s death toll brought to 17 the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank since early 2023.

Nearly 150 Palestinians will be killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in 2022, the deadliest year since 2004, according to Israeli human rights group B’Tselem.

Israel said most of the dead were militants. But Palestinian stone-throwers, youths protesting the invasion and others not involved in the confrontation were also killed. (Associated Press)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)