Israeli forces have carried out raids in the occupied West Bank for the second day in a row, prompting calls from the United Nations for de-escalation.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Wednesday it had launched a “counterterrorism operation”. On Thursday it said 12 people had been killed in the cities of Jenin and Tulkarm.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health reported a higher death toll, with 16 people killed since Wednesday morning.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called on Israel to immediately halt the operation, saying it would only fuel an already volatile situation.
He urged the Israeli military to “exercise maximum restraint and use lethal force only when absolutely unavoidable.”
The IDF said five people were killed after “firefights” in Tulkarm with militants who were “hiding in a mosque.” It said seven people had died in Jenin.
Mohammed Jaber, also known as Abu Shujaa, was among those killed, the Israeli military said. He was reportedly the local leader of the Tulkarem Brigade, which is backed by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group.
According to the IDF, Jaber was linked to a number of attacks against Israelis and planned more.
The Tulkarm Brigade said in a statement on Telegram that its fighters ambushed an Israeli infantry unit “in response to the killing of our commander,” without naming him.
According to the Israeli military, ten wanted suspects were arrested and explosives and weapons were seized during raids in Tulkarm and Jenin.
The Palestinian Mission to the UN condemned the raids in a letter Thursday, saying the Israeli army had “invaded homes, deliberately targeted civilians, destroyed vital infrastructure and even besieged the area’s four main hospitals.”
In Jenin, ambulances were stopped and checked by military jeeps parked around the government hospital as security forces continued their operation in the city’s refugee camp.
The camp is a base for armed groups and shelters unarmed civilians. In the past, it has been the scene of many violent gun battles.
Israeli forces have blocked access to the camp and Palestinian telephone networks have been knocked out.
It is the second day of what Israeli media reports could be a days-long operation in the West Bank.
It is one of the largest actions in the West Bank since the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising, twenty years ago.
Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, said the operation has a “clear objective: to prevent Iranian terror that would harm Israeli civilians.”
In recent days, Israeli politicians have accused Iran, which supports both Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, of smuggling explosives aimed at attacking Israel.
Israel “cannot sit passively and wait for buses and cafes to explode in city centers,” Danon said in a message on X.
Since Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza, there has been an increase in violence in the West Bank.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said the Israeli operation in the West Bank “must not be a pretext for an extension of the war from Gaza”.
He said he had started a procedure to ask EU member states whether they would impose sanctions on “some Israeli ministers”.
He accused the ministers – whom he did not name – of “spreading unacceptable hate speech against the Palestinians and proposing things that are clearly contrary to international law”.
