At least five killed in Israeli raids in occupied West Bank: Ministry

At least five people have been killed by Israeli fire as the Israeli army carried out a number of overnight raids in the occupied West Bank, according to Palestinian officials.

The Palestinian health ministry said three people were killed early on Wednesday in an Israeli air attack on the Jenin refugee camp. Two more young people were killed during raids in Qalqilya and Qalandiya, respectively, it added.

The Israeli military said on Wednesday that a group of Palestinians at the camp “fired and hurled explosive devices” at its forces when they were carrying out “counterterrorism activities”. The army hit them with a drone, it said, without mentioning casualties.

Al Jazeera’s Charles Stratford, reporting from Ramallah, said Israeli forces went into Jenin “with military-grade bulldozers that they use so often to destroy homes” of Palestinians in the West Bank.

“The main focus of that raid was a refugee camp in Jenin, but there was another incident in the village of Burqin, just outside of Jenin. There were a number of arrests made there,” he said.

The West Bank has emerged as another front in Israel’s war in Gaza.

It began on October 7 when Hamas, the armed group that runs the Palestinian enclave, attacked southern Israel, prompting Israel to bombard Gaza with air attacks. The violence killed 1,400 people in Israel and more than 5,700 in Gaza.

At least 103 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank over the same period, according to the Palestinian health ministry.

The drone attack was at least the third use of Israeli air power in the West Bank.

Jenin refugee camp was the focus of a major Israeli military operation earlier this year.