Israeli Army Kills Three Palestinians In Rare West Bank Air Strike

The Israeli army has killed three Palestinians in an air strike on Jenin in the occupied West Bank, amid heightened tensions and renewed Israeli military activity in the territory.

According to a report by Al Jazeera, the Israeli military In a statement confirmed said it “eliminated” three people on Friday, including a Palestinian it identified as a Hamas operative and two alleged accomplices.

Hamas condemned the attack but did not confirm that the targeted man, identified by the Israeli military as Qais Bitawi, was one of its members. Palestinian Islamic Jihad, however, said Bitawi was a senior member of its armed wing.

An Israeli military spokesperson said the strike targeted a vehicle carrying the three men.

The Palestine Red Crescent ambulance service said Israeli ground forces subsequently raided the location of the drone strike, briefly detained medical personnel and prevented them from taking those wounded or killed to hospital.

The Red Crescent said its medics were also detained after reaching the scene.

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Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that the Israeli drone strike hit a house under construction in western Jenin City, killing three Palestinians instantly.

Photographs released by AFP showed Israeli soldiers removing a body from the construction site on the outskirts of Jenin.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the operation as a “successful thwarting” of the three men targeted in the strike in a post on X.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz also congratulated the military, police and Shin Bet over the operation, claiming that the Jenin camp had been “evacuated of residents”.

Katz said Israeli forces were now “permanently stationed there, like other terrorist camps” across the West Bank.

Hamas, in its statement, mourned “the martyrs who fell in the occupation’s bombing of Jenin,” and said Palestinians “will continue to cling to their land and rights”.

The group urged the international community “to take immediate action to stop these crimes and end impunity” and called for Israel to be held “fully responsible for the repercussions”.

The occupied West Bank, where the Palestinian Authority is based, has witnessed a sharp increase in violence involving Israeli settlers and security forces.

However, the territory has largely been spared the sustained Israeli air campaign that has devastated Gaza since the war began on October 7, 2023.

While Israeli military raids on Palestinian towns and cities in the West Bank are frequent, Israel’s previous air strike in the territory was carried out in February 2025.

Friday’s attack in Jenin came as separate Israeli strikes in Gaza killed at least five people.

The latest violence also coincided with a warning from Nikolay Mladenov, the high representative of the US-led Board of Peace, that failure by both sides to comply with the roadmap for peace “threatens a collapse of the ceasefire in Gaza”.