Deaths in Tulkarm bring toll to 16 during Israel’s deadliest operation in occupied territory since 7 October
The Israeli military said it had killed five Palestinian fighters inside a mosque in the West Bank city of Tulkarm, in the midst of one of the largest assaults on the occupied territory for months.
The overall toll of 16 Palestinians killed in less than two days would make it the deadliest Israeli operation in the West Bank since 7 October and the attack in Israel by Hamas which ignited the Gaza war.
The latest fighting came as the EU foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said on Thursday he had formally asked the bloc’s members to consider imposing sanctions on some Israeli ministers for “hate messages” against Palestinians that he said broke international law.
Borrell did not name any of the Israeli ministers to whom he was referring, nor specify which messages he had in mind. But in recent weeks he has publicly criticised Israel’s security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, and the finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, for statements he has described as “sinister” and “an incitement to war crimes”.
The second day of the Israeli operation, which has seen as many as three brigades of troops deployed in several major West Bank cities backed by helicopters, drones and armoured personnel carriers, also included raids in the northern city of Jenin and in the Jordan valley.
The Israeli operation comes amid mounting fears over the trajectory of the already serious violence in the West Bank, which has been fuelled by the actions of far-right settlers and their supporters in the government of Benjamin Netanyahu.
